How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Then just maybe she'll forgive me. I don't realize Sandy's been talking, oblivious of the music swelling, of the mother-daughter reconciliation that's occurring in my head. (2.102-2.103)
Jude thinks that her dead mother is blaming her for something. We only find out what that something is many chapters later.
Quote #2
After this happened with Zephyr, my mother died. Right after. It was me. I brought the bad luck to us. (2.189)
Jude lost her virginity on the same day that her mother died. Ludicrously, she thinks the two events are related. A bad sexual experience doesn't automatically cause cars to fall off cliffs, folks.
Quote #3
"He was supposed to be the next Chagall, not the next doorstop. You are your brother's keeper, dear." (2.226)
We later learn that Jude is not, in fact, her brother's keeper. She's his tormentor. But thinking she had to be his keeper created its fair share of pressure, too. Both versions cause her a lot of guilt.
Quote #4
Guilt is a prison, she said. I stopped going to see her. (2.228)
Do you agree with Jude's school counselor about guilt being a prison? How come these characters don't believe in such a thing as a get out of jail free card?
Quote #5
"She's my mom too. Why can't you share?" The kick of guilt goes straight to my gut. (3.131-3.132)
Jude is intensely jealous of Noah's relationship with their mother. It drives her to do terrible things, even after her mother is gone.
Quote #6
"One night, she took a tumble out of bed, probably she needed the bedpan, but then after she fell, she couldn't get herself up. She was too weak, too sick.…She spent fifteen hours on the floor, shivering, hungry, in excruciating pain, calling for me, while I was passed out cold in the next room." (4.724)
Oscar is carrying around a lot of guilt for the way he treated his mother (or didn't, because he was passed out cold) while she was on her deathbed. Yikes.
Quote #7
The longer I waited, the more the shame grew and the more impossible it got to admit what I'd done. Guilt grew too, like a disease, like every disease.…I was too scared if I confessed, I'd lose Dad and Noah forever, too cowardly to face it, to fix it, to make it right. (6.86)
Turns out the reason Jude feels so guilty is that she put Noah's application at the bottom of a trash can instead of mailing it. Which…yeah, that's pretty awful.
Quote #8
Even as the police officer told us these unimaginable, world-breaking things, I was still crawling around in the wrongness of what I'd just done. It was caked along with sand in every pore of my body. (6.145)
Jude immediately regrets having sex with Zephyr. It'll remain a source of intense guilt and shame for the next two years.
Quote #9
Zephyr Ravens is not a harbinger of anything at all. He's not bad luck—he's a terminal burnout dimwit loser asshole, offense intended. And what we did didn't cause bad luck either—it caused endless inner-ick and regret and anger and—. (6.168-6.169)
Toward the end of the book, Jude has an epiphany that her sexual experience had no bearing on her mother's death. Thank goodness. Finally, she can let her guilt go. And hopefully find someone who's less of a burnout dimwit loser asshole, too. Hi, Oscar.
Quote #10
"Noah." My voice has returned. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't." I repeat the words until I'm sure he's heard them, believes them. "It wasn't anyone's. It just happened." (8.33)
Jude helps Noah let go of his guilt about his mother's death. She knows he's not to blame, just like she figured out she wasn't to blame, either. Way to go, twinsies.