Sue Miller Quotes

There are secrets in families. That is the definition of a family.

In a family, what isn't spoken is what you listen for. But the noise of a family is to drown it out.

I was not allowed to talk about being adopted when growing up. I walked around feeling like I was going to explode.

There's a degree of deception in silence.

I used to tell people my father was a plumber, because that would mean we had a normal life.

The worst kind of lying I've ever done is keeping things from people.

Every family has that secret. Every family has that thing where you go, 'Shhh, shhh, shhh.'

Sometimes I hid my family connections.

Just because it is Christmas doesn't mean you should bottle all your feelings up. Mind you, sometimes being a good wife does mean knowing when to shut up.

In my family, Father is the world champion at ending conversations.

A part of me was hoping someone would wake up and hear, so I wouldn't have to live with this lie anymore. But no one woke up and in the silence that followed, I understood the nature of my new curse: I was going to get away with it.

My father ain't in Europe; my father's in a better place than Europe." Winterbourne imagined for a moment that this was the manner in which the child had been taught to intimate that Mr. Miller had been removed to the sphere of celestial reward. But Randolph immediately added, "My father's in Schenectady.

There are secrets everywhere. I think everyone's parents have secrets. You just have to know where to look for them.

Just because you didn't speak the facts out loud didn't erase their existence. Silence was just a quieter way to lie.

Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no lies.

A lot of the questions that anyone would naturally have about their family, you'll get much of the answers for, or at least hints to where it will go, in the future.

It requires as much to tell the truth as to conceal it.

Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.

Anything I tell you is an alibi for something else." Then let's be quiet together.

I don't ever remember being able to debate with my parents. Even though I thought of myself as a very bright kid, I couldn't be vocal in that way.

If a well-constituted individual refrains from blazoning aught amiss or calamitous in his family, a nation in the like circumstance may without reproach be equally discreet.

Truth can remain silent. Lies must be spoken.

Ask no questions and you'll hear no lies.

I would start drinking something terrible if I were in a situation where I was surrounded by lies or quiet or secrets. It's just not a real life.

I was trying to unravel the complicated trigonometry of the radical thought that silence could make up the greatest lie ever told.