Jasper Jones Quotes

I don't understand a thing about this world: about people, and why they do the things they do. The more I find out, the more I uncover, the more I know, the less I understand.

Sorry. Sorry means you feel the pulse of other people's pain as well as your own, and saying it means you take a share of it. And so it binds us together, makes us trodden and sodden as one another. Sorry is a lot of things. It's a hole refilled. A debt repaid. Sorry is the wake of misdeed. It's the crippling ripple of consequence. Sorry is sadness, just as knowing is sadness. Sorry is sometimes self-pity. But Sorry, really, is not about you. It's theirs to take or leave. Sorry means you leave yourself open, to embrace or to ridicule or to revenge. Sorry is a question that begs forgiveness, because the metronome of a good heart won't settle until things are set right and true. Sorry doesn't take things back, but it pushes things forward. It bridges the gap. Sorry is a sacrament. It's an offering. A gift.

My point is this: the more you have to lose, the braver you are for standing up.

Life might be easier if you give in a little, but it's better if you hold onto something so hard you can't give it up.

Still, there is something emboldening about being awake when the rest of the world is sleeping. Like I know something they don't.

I never understood why you would ever feel the need to shoot the fish in the barrel. I mean, they're in a barrel, you've already caught them. The hard work's done, they can't escape. So if you want them dead, just drain the water out. Why bring guns into it?

You need to understand that truth is stranger than fiction. Listen: people are willing to swallow any old tripe as long as you say it without flinching. They want to be told stuff. And they don't want to doubt you either. It's too hard.

Batman doesn't have any superpowers. He's not superhuman. He's not super. So therefore he can't be a superhero.

Jasper Jones fell out of this world and nobody noticed...And they'll notice now because something has been burned. Now they'll look for Jasper Jones.

I can wade through the dark, but I can only see as far as the guttering candle allows me.

Sorry is a question that begs forgiveness, because the metronome of a good heart won't settle until things are set right and true.

How strange and abandoned and unsettled I am. Like a snowdome paper weight that's been shaken. There's a blizzard in my bubble. Everything in my world that was steady and sure and sturdy has been shaken out of place, and it's now drifting and swirling back down in a confetti of debris. (p30)

What kind of lousy world is this? Has it always been this way, or has the bottom fallen out of it in the past couple of days? Has it always been so unfair? What is it that tips the scales so? I don’t understand it.

Well, see, I think it's that most people don't like that lonely feeling. People don't like looking up and feeling small or lost. That's what I think prayer is all about. It doesn't matter which stories they believe in, they're all doing the same thing, kind of casting a line out to outer space, like there's something out there to connect to. It's like people make themselves part of something bigger that way, and maybe it makes them less afraid.

Prices of semicolons, plot devices, prologues and inciting incidents continued to fall yesterday, lopping twenty points off the TomJones Index.

Holding something doesn't make it yours. You realize at some point you're just keeping it back for yourself, because it's pulling away with equal force. You've got to cut the string from your finger and leave that wispy thread, like a baby spider on the breeze.

A tree doesn't know it's a tree. It doesn't know how pretty its flowers are, or how beautiful they smell, or how soft and sweet its fruit is, It can't feel how warm I am with my arms around it. It can't hear me when I tell it these things. It doesn't know anything. I'm glad you're not a tree.

I'm excited but afraid. I long to turn and wedge myself through the horse's arse from which I've just fallen, to sit safe in the hot womb of my room. But this is Jasper Jones, and he and come to me.

My exit from the window is a little like a foal being born. It's a graceless and gangly drop, directly onto my mother's gerbera bed. I emerge quickly and pretend it didn't hurt.

My brain is a vast, barren, jokeless plain where wolves howl at the moon over rocky overhangs and the wind kicks up twists of sand and tumbleweed.

I'd sneer and tell him he's got the cerebral finesse of an amoeba and delight in his squint of confusion.

And I realize I've been betrayed by the two vices that fiction promised me I'd adore. Sal Paradise held up bottles of booze like a housewife in a detergent commercial. Holden Caulfield reached for his cigarettes like an act of faith. Even Huckleberry Finn tapped on his pipe with relief and satisfaction. If sex turns out to be this bad, I'm never reading again.

See, Batman is different. He's mortal. He's got a real life to risk. Superman just has to avoid Kryptonite. Big deal. Superman fears nothing because outside a few very specific circumstances where he might encounter some stupid rock, nothing can possibly do him in. Batman has the same vulnerabilities as the rest of us, so he has the same fears as us. That's why he's the most courageous: because he can put those aside and fight on regardless. My point is this: the more you have to lose, the braver you re for standing up. That's why Batman is superior to Superman, and that's why I am infinitely smarter then you.' I am a genius. I have won. 'Pffft! Whatever. I'll bet Batman won't be too loud about his superiority when Superman is belting seven shades of shit out of him.

What I'm feeling, I think, is joy. And it's been some time since I've felt that blinkered rush of happiness, This might be one of those rare events that lasts, one that'll be remembered and recalled as months and years wind and ravel. One of those sweet, significant moments that leaves a footprint in your mind. A photograph couldn't ever tell its story. It's like something you have to live to understand. One of those freak collisions of fizzing meteors and looming celestial bodies and floating debris and one single beautiful red ball that bursts into your life and through your body like an enormous firework. Where things shift into focus for a moment, and everything makes sense. And it becomes one of those things inside you, a pearl among sludge, one of those big exaggerated memories you can invoke at any moment to peel away a little layer of how you felt, like a lick of ice cream. The flavor of grace.

And it happens like that. Like when you first realize that there is no such thing as magic. Or that nothing actually answers your prayers, or really even listens. That cold moment of dismay where your feet are kicked from under you, where you're disarmed by a shard of knowing.

I collect words and lock them away, stored like a hoard of gems.

Every instance in my life, I've felt like the exact opposite of Superman. Except this time, this moment right now. I don't care. I don't feel like a weak, insipid sissy. Because right now I know I would save the girl. I know that I would rather risk the planet than let harm befall Eliza Wishart. I would save her in a second. Because I can imagine her and me huddled safe together while the earth falls under evil designs, but I can't imagine the world without her in it.

I force a smile and hold up my hand, which must end up looking like some sort of strange, leery wince, like I've just swallowed a glass of somebody's urine and I'm recommending it.

I bid you a Jew.

With things like this, when people don't really understand what has happened, they'll assume the worst long before they have to. It's a little like when people are afraid of the dark. Often it's not the darkness they're afraid of, it's the fact that they don't know what's in it. And because they can't see, because they're not sure, they start to imagine there are more sinister things afoot than there ordinarily would be.

There’s no such thing as God, Charlie, at least not how they say. Just like there’s no such thing as Zeus or Apollo or bloody unicorns. You’re on your own. And that can make you feel either lonely or powerful. When you’re born, you wither luck out or you don’t. It’s a lottery. Tough shit or good on yer. But from there, it’s all up to you… soon as you can walk and talk, you start makin your own luck. And I don’t need some spirit in the sky to help me do that. I can do it on me own. But see, that’s what I reckon God really is, Charlie. It’s that part inside me that’s stronger and harder than anything else. And I reckon prayer is just trusting in it, having faith in it, just asking meself to be tough. And that’s all you can do. I don’t need a bunch of bullshit stories about towers and boats and floods or rules about sin. It’s all just a complicated way to get to that place in you, and it’s not honest either. I don’t need to trick meself into thinking anyone else is listenin’, or even cares. Because it doesn’t matter. I matter. And I know I’ll be alright. Because I got a good heart, and fuck this town for making me try and believe otherwise. It’s what you come with and what you leave with. And that’s all I got.

I wonder if I’ll ever be without fear… Maybe it’s not about being without it. Maybe it’s about how well you walk with the weight.

Tongues were wagging. Aspersions were being cast like dandelion spores on hot gossipy winds.

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.

There’s no such thing as God, Charlie, at least not how they say.

See, most people you meet, they'll talk to you through fifty layers of gauze and tinting. Sometimes you know they're lying even before they've started speaking. And it seems the older they get, the more brazen and desperate folks become, and they lie about things that don't even matter... I don't know. Maybe they just get so used to it they don't even notice. Maybe it's like a creeping curse and the more you do it, the easier it gets. What's amazing is that they think they're fooling anybody.

What I'm feeling, I think, is joy. And it's been some time since I've felt that blinkered rush of happiness. This might be one of those rare events that lasts, one that'll be remembered and recalled as months and years wind and ravel. One of those sweet, significant moments that leaves a footprint in your mind.

I feel as though I should say something profound, or enact some rite, or trade something to make it official. I want to transfer some trinket which would allow me to say that she's my girl, some kind of currency that proves to people that she likes me back. Something that would permit me to think about her all the time without feeling guilty or helpless or hopelessly far away. I guess I'm just so excited, I want to cage this thing like a tiny red bird so if can't fly away, so it stays the same, so it's still there the next time. For keeps, like a coin in your pocket. Like a peach pit from Mad Jack Lionel's tree. Like scribbled words in a locked suitcase. A bright balloon to tie to your bedpost. And you want to hug it close, hold it, but not so tight it bursts.

...if it were anyone else, I would choose to step back and turn away right now. I would never bow my head and push through that wattle, and its golden orbs would never shake loose and nestle in my hair like confetti. I would never grab at its rough trunk to save me from tripping. I would never part its locks of foliage. And I would never lift my head to see this neat clearing of land. I would never look past Jasper Jones to reveal his secret. But I don't turn back. I stay. I follow Jasper Jones. And I see it.

Take no heed of her," explained Jones apologetically. "She reads a lot of books.

See, everyone here’s afraid of something and nuthin. This town, that’s how they live, and they don’t even know it. They stick to what they know, what they bin told. They don’t unnerstand that it’s just a choice you make.

See, most people you meet, they’ll talk to you through fifty layers of gauze and tinting. Sometimes you know they’re lying even before they’ve started speaking. And it seems the older they get, the more brazen and desperate folks become, and they lie about things that don’t even matter.

And the thing that makes him the best superhero is exactly your stupid, ignorant assertion: that he's just a guy. He is fallible. And unlike Superman, he requires courage.

Cricket is the most repetitive enterprise in history.

It’s better to shut up and appear stupid than open your mouth and remove all doubt.

That’s what you do, right? When you’re readin. You’re seeing what it’s like for other people.

I need to narrow things down, start pruning back. Until then, I’m a whirring zoetrope of half-thoughts and worries.

I mean, I know people have always bin afraid of me. Kids specially, but old people too. Wary. They reckon I’m just half an animal with half a vote. That I’m no good. And I always used to think, why? They don’t even know me. Nobody does. It never made sense. But then I realized, that’s exactly why. That’s all it is. It’s so stupid, Charlie. But it means I don’t hate them anymore.

The less you know, the further away you are, the easier it is to shrug and tut and move on. And so Corrigan remains a town of barnacles. A cluster of hard shells that suck themselves stuck and clench themselves shut and choose not to know about dying.

Sorry means you feel the pulse of other people’s pain as well as your own, and saying it means you take a share of it. And so it binds us together, makes us as trodden and sodden as one another. Sorry is a lot of things. It’s a hole refilled. A debt repaid. Sorry is the wake of misdeed. It’s the crippling ripple of consequence. Sorry is sadness, just as knowing is sadness. Sorry is sometimes self-pity. But Sorry, really, is not about you. It’s theirs to take or leave. Sorry means you leave yourself open, to embrace or to ridicule or to revenge. Sorry is a question that begs forgiveness, because the metronome of a good heart won’t settle until things are set right and true. Sorry doesn’t take things back, but it pushes things forward. It bridges the gap. Sorry is a sacrament. It’s an offering. A gift. Yes. Sorry is when good people feel bad.

We told them about Stringbean’s missing tent poles. Mr. Jordan knelt down in front of Stringbean. “Don’t worry, Greenbean. We’ll find a place for you to sleep.” Jasper mumbled, “It’s Stringbean, sir.” Mr. Jordan looked confused. He couldn’t understand Stringbean’s mumble-jumble. “String cheese?” he asked. “Do you want a piece of string cheese?” “Never mind,” Stringbean said.

people are willing to swallow any old tripe as long as you say it without flinching. They want to be told stuff. And they don’t want to doubt you either. It’s too hard. So if you say it like you really mean it to be true, then you’re away.

You know how you meet someone and you feel like you've known them all your life? That's how it was.

We never fooled around much, even though she was older. She was strange about that stuff. But I never cared really. its not why I brang her here anyways.

and it’s right on the spot. In fact, it

I greet Jeffrey's grumpy tabby, Chairman Meow, who ignores me and crouches beneath the white cage of Jeffrey's affable parakeet, Chairman Wow.

I’m caught in a rip, being dragged out further and deeper against my will.

If he can watch this with a thin grin, what else could he watch? What other cruel things could he view without intervening?

I am in this story. She can’t be ignored.

We are monsters.

It’ll be ‘case closed’ before it’s even opened, Charlie.

I wish Jasper Jones were here right now. I wish he were standing next to me. Then I could holler everything I want to holler.

Conviction, Charles. You could do with some. Look at Dickens! He got away with murder!

And I see it. And everything changes. The world breaks and spins and shakes.

If we don’t look, if we talk around her, she’ll dissolve into the night. And this won’t have happened.

being born without courage has proved to be a significant hindrance,

He’s right. Jasper Jones is right. He’s really in trouble.

And Jasper points at me now, rising like a snake.

My feet, my pansy sandals, are rooted to the earth.

It looks like the chalk outline of a murder. Like I died during the night. Or I shed my skin like a snake.

I think Jasper Jones speaks the whole truth in a town of liars. I can tell.

Ah, me so solly!

Got your boyfriend here, Cong?” “Chorlie loves it in the orse!

(which Jeffrey dubbed “the girly stuff”)

I try to reason with him, like Atticus might.

This town, they think I’m a bloody animal. They think I belong in a cage, and this here is just an excuse to lock me up in one.

If a bullet can’t possibly hurt you, how is it brave to stand in front of one?

See, most people you meet, they’ll talk to you through fifty layers of gauze and tinting.

The outcast that killed the shire president’s daughter. He doesn’t stand a chance.

They reckon I’m just half an animal with half a vote.

There’s a blizzard in my bubble. Everything in my world that was steady and sure and sturdy has been shaken out of place,

Everyone ages. Everyone can learn a trade and pay taxes and have a family. But that’s not growin up. It’s about how you act when your shit gets shaken up, it’s about how much you see around you. That’s what makes a man.

Right. I guess it must be comforting to actually believe in God and Jesus and all that. It must fill in all that space so you don’t have to worry about it anymore. But it’s a bit like closing a door when there’s a cold draft, isn’t it? It’s still cold out there, it’s just that you don’t notice anymore because you’re warm.

I’ve always loved reading and stuff. Books, poems. So maybe a writer. I always thought that would be the thing. To write books. Make up stories.” I try to couch it with an ambivalent shrug, like it’s a fleeting thought, like it’s not the single thing I’ve had my heart set on since I could first read. To my surprise, Jasper nods his approval. ”Yeah. I reckon that’s you for sure, Charlie.” “You think?” “No doubt. Reckon you’d be great. Move to some big city with a typewriter. Meetin people, tellin their stories. Maybe you could write my story one day. Then we’ll make a film out of it, for certains. Imagine that.

This dread is lousy. When it hits, it's like someone has turned the dial that controls gravity. Everything sinks hard and cold and fast/ It winds you. It's that same feeling, that same sad panic you confront when you can't sleep, when your mind wanders and you remind yourself, for no reason at all, that you're going to die one day. That you will end, you will be buried and forgotten. And everything and everyone you know and remember and love will be void.

A tree doesn’t know it’s a tree. It doesn’t know how pretty its flowers are, or how beautiful they smell, or how soft and sweet its fruit is. It can’t feel how warm I am with my arms around it. It can’t hear me when I tell it these things. It doesn’t know anything. I’m glad you’re not a tree.

And it happens like that. Like when you first realise that there is no such thing as magic.

Because a girl goes missing in this town and it’s Jasper Jones who is held and threatened and belted for days, but somehow those monsters will arouse no suspicion.