Nineteen Minutes

“Newborns reminded her of tiny Buddhas, faces full of divinity […] That holiness, somehow, disappeared, and Lacy was always left wondering where in this world it might go.” 

Lacy’s belief in the divinity of children underscores her struggle with Peter’s eventual actions. She wonders where this innocence goes and how Peter became so devilish, instead of divine.

“The enemy was always supposed to be an outsider, not the kid who was sitting right next to you.” 

It’s hard for people to fathom that harm can come from so close. People don’t expect that a person they know might be capable of violence.

“Lacy didn’t like to let herself consider whether Lewis and their family was truly happy.” 

This quote foreshadows what Lacy deals with for the rest of the narrative when trying to understand why she never knew her son was so miserable and angry.

‘“Isn’t it amazing how, when you strip away everything, people are so much alike?’” 

This quote will test the town later, when people are stripped of their hope. Lacy shows here that people usually have the same common denominator when faced with nothing.

“What sort of disadvantage would it be to come into this world backward?” 

Another foreshadowing quote as people also come into the world the right way and still find themselves at a disadvantage. It shows that environment plays a strong role in how one defines disadvantage.

Lie to yourself until it’s true.” 

Lacy thinks this during Josie’s birth, but the quote also highlights how Lacy often thinks this when faced with whether she was a good mother after Peter’s rampage.

“When you’re hurting deeply, you go inward.” 

This quote explains why Peter withdrew into himself due to being bullied, and it also explains how Josie withdrew into herself from the shock of shooting Matt.

‘“Instead of doing the best thing, we sometimes have to settle for the rightest thing.’”

Alex uses this reasoning with a young Josie to show her how rules ensure that people do not do whatever they want to. Sometimes people must act in a way that ensures the due process of law, instead of what their heart feels is best.

“You couldn’t fight the injustice of fate; you could only suffer it and hope that one day it might be different.” 

Lacy thinks this in response to disciplining Peter for not being tough enough. It’s ironic in that Peter, when older, takes fate into his own hands and causes others to suffer so that he doesn’t have to.

“Alex had been given a mantel to wear, without realizing that there was a catch: she would never be allowed to take it off.” 

Alex’s new position as a judge means that she must act like a judge both in the courthouse and outside of it. Alex realizes that her life—and motherhood—must come second to her role as judge.

“A gun was nothing, really, without a person behind it.”

This quote foreshadows Peter’s future beliefs. While learning about guns, he learns that it’s the person behind the gunwho holds the true power.

“You couldn’t argue the facts; you could only change the lens through which you looked at them.” 

Peter has killed people, and Lewis realizes that they must now understand why, instead of questioning the act itself. They must look at the situation differently, instead of blaming themselves for every little detail.

“She’d thought that death could be an answer, because she was too immature to realize it was the biggest question of all.” 

Josie had contemplated suicide, thinking it was a good way to address her fears. With the shooting, she now realizes how death is just an endless question with no real answer.

“Imagine waking up one morning and finding a piece of yourself you didn’t even know existed.” 

Jordan thinks about Sam and wonders at how amazing it would be to find a new piece of yourself. The flipside of this is someone like Peter who wakes up and realizes he has the capacity for murder.

“That was the way this society worked: you were only at the bottom of the totem pole until you could find someone else to take your place.” 

This quote highlights Josie’s struggle for the entire narrative. Popularity is a fickle thing, and people are only popular because they find people to take a place below them.

“‘Being on the fringe is the most disempowering feeling, Jordan. You get so used to the world being a certain way, there seems to be no escape from it.’”

Selena says this to Jordan to highlight how minorities and others on the fringe can feel hopeless in regard to their station in life. The quote foreshadows Peter’s hopelessness, trauma that Jordan will attribute to PTSD and battered-woman syndrome.

“Maybe pain was the price everyone paid for love.” 

Josie thinks this the first time she has sex. It’s telling in that pain shouldn’t be equated with love, and it foreshadows her relationship with Matt.

“Security was a mirage; being tied down hardly counted when the other end of the rope had unraveled.” 

Lacy thinks this upon finding Lewis at the gravesite for Peter’s victims. She realizes that the constructs people put in place for safety are not as secure as people want to believe them to be.

“Children didn’t make their own mistakes. They plunged into the pits they’d been led to by their parents.” 

Lacy realizes that regardless of Peter’s actions, she was at one point responsible for guiding him and that both she and Lewis failed in this.

“‘When someone dies, their lives aren’t the ones that stop at that moment, you know?’” 

Patrick tells Alex this, and it underscores how tragedy affects many people, not just the person who dies or is hurt. 

“Popular kids didn’t really have friends; they had alliances.” 

Josie knows that none of her friends are truly her friends. They work together, but they will shift allegiances if it ensures they will remain popular or at the top.

“Maybe it was our own damn fault that men turned out the way they did, Selena thought. Maybe empathy, like any unused muscle, simply atrophied.” 

Selena thinks this while watching her toddler, Sam, play. Selena wonders if men are conditioned to be tough and quiet, and if this lack of empathy is what’s wrong with males.

“There were some memories, she knew, you could run from forever and never shake.”

Josie’s acknowledgement of this fact underscores the place of trauma in her life, and in the lives of other people in Sterling, who can’t shake their tragic memories of the mass shooting.