Discussion Pages Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill Mr Wilson – LMAC

A lot of kids get the privilege of looking at themselves through their mother’s eyes, and sometimes I could barely stand to look. (186)

Every good pimp is a mother. (186)

It hadn’t occurred to Jules to take my photograph in years. He didn’t seem to realize that one day I wouldn’t be a kid anymore. There would be nothing to remember me by. (187)

Lots of times when children draw a person on a blank sheet of paper, they don’t draw any background at all, just a person standing there without any context. That was me. (188)

The curtain between the acts in my life was always a dense forest. It was impossible for me not to know what was going to happen when the trees parted. (188)

So many weird, unusual things happened in one day, and yet the days were exactly the same. And apparently, when you have no future, there is really no such thing as time anyway... We wanted to be convinced that feeling bad was a good thing. (189-90)

You could not make a kid with bad memories into a kid with good memories. (191)

[Ralphy] was the person who had most mastered the superhero skill of invisibility. Sometimes when I looked at him, I had a hard time believing he was real. (193)

To see the stars properly, you have to be out in the country... It was almost shocking how many stars were out there. This is where they were all sent to. So that nobody could see them but one another. (196)

I realized why Ralphy had closed his eyes. It was because he was praying. I was praying that someone would come up and wrap their arms around me and hide my nakedness. (197)

“Did you see him just get the hell out of there! He’d been planning it all along. Don’t tell me that bird isn’t a master criminal.” (199)