30 Quotes by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

All of these events, we would understand, were tangled together- no one cause, no one beginning.

But strangely, I am all right. The world I belong to now is the one in the books I read. When I am awake, I am reading.

My sisters and I stand on the deck, the shale tile cool against the soles of our feet – for a week it seems we never have to wear shoes – and take turns twirling, the matching turquoise silk skirts my mother bought us sliding coolly up our legs, our laughter flying out over the ocean. We are all light and happy and far, far away from home.

Consistency is what we prize, and coherency, and reason, and to be true to our ideals so that they fit together into the neat puzzle of us.

A person can be angry and still feel shame. A person can burn with hate at his mama and still love her enough to want to be something that will make her proud.

The law – with each side’s relentless pursuit of one story – has never known what to do with this complicated middle ground. But life is full of it.

I live in a dream, a dream of being loved.

But I look at the man on the screen, I feel my grandfather’s hands on me, and I know. Despite what I’ve trained for, despite what I’ve come here to work for, despite what I believe. I want Ricky to die.

The man at the center of this trial, endlessly discussed and debated, endlessly documented and dissected in what will turn out to be nearly thirty thousand pages of documents, will remain an enigma in this way. What you see in Ricky may depend more on who you are than on who he is.