When You Reach Me Truth Quotes

It was Richard who taught me how to tie knots. He learned back when he sailed boats as a kid, and he still carries pieces of rope in his briefcase. He says that when he's trying to solve a problem at work, he takes out the ropes, ties them into knots, unties them, and then ties them again. It gets him in the right frame of mind. (6.3)

"Einstein says common sense is just habit of thought. It's how we're used to thinking about things, but a lot of the time it just gets in the way."

"In the way of what?"

"In the way of what's true." (14.62-64)

Mom says each of us has a veil between ourselves and the rest of the world, like a bride wears on her wedding day, except this kind of veil is invisible. We walk around happily with these invisible veils hanging down over our faces. The world is kind of blurry, and we like it that way.

But sometimes our veils are pushed away for a few moments, like there's a wind blowing it from our faces. And when the veil lifts, we can see the world as it really is, just for those few seconds before it settles down again. We see all the beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love. But mostly we are happy not to. Some people learn to lift the veil themselves. Then they don't have to depend on the wind anymore. (21.3)

It was at that moment, standing next to her, that I figured out the truth. The truth was that Mom saw it too: the peeling paint, the cigarette butts on the stairs, everything. It soaked into me like water into sand, fast and heavy-making. (35.18)

After dinner, I closed my door and sat on my bed with your notes spread out in front of me. "Think," my brain said. "Think, think, think." I got out my ropes, tied some knots, and tried to start at the beginning. (46.5)

"But the day Marcus hit you – that was the day that you stopped wanting to do stuff together. You stopped –"

He shook his head. "No. It was before that." (47.22-23)

"I want you to know why I hit your friend that day—" (48.58)

"He doesn't age, I tell you. Dick Clark simply does not age. It's amazing." I'm chanting to myself, "Magic thread, magic thread," and I'm staring at Mom so hard that my eyes are almost aching. (50.23)

I am jumping up and down because at the very moment Dick Clark said the word "Go," it was like an invisible hand reached out and snatched away my veil. And for almost a minute, I understood everything. (51.5)

Marcus is the magic thread. You are the laughing man. You are Marcus. Marcus is the laughing man. Or he will be, when he's old.

"None of it makes sense!" my brain yelled.

"But all of it is true," I answered. (51.19-20)