Quotes about Columbine that have stayed with you?

I recently finished Sue Klebold's book and one line that has stayed with me was from Sue describing the shootings "He (Dylan) shot again, injuring Lisa Kreutz and Valeen Schnurr. Then he killed Lauren Townsend."

I think it was the matter-of-fact tone Sue employed that kind of made that line more hard hitting. I can't imagine what it must feel like for parent to write about such deeds commited by their own child.

So do any of you have any quotes that have stuck with you?

Sue's book was a hard one to read. One of the saddest parts for me was on pg 231. It was difficult to read about her hugging Dylan. Telling him how much she loved him, and that they were proud of him. The way she describes Dylan's reaction is heartbreaking.

"They're Part Of A Club No One Wants to Belong To" - Quotation from an article about Anne-Marie Hochhalter and a Virginia Tech survivor.

Regina Rohde, survivor and witness. wrote:

"It is never the same, there is no such thing as normal ever again."

Columbine space-monkeys like to bring this one up. I'm not sure why, maybe to confirm that they really did leave a lasting impression on the world?

...also I just realized that, in true Kleboldian fashion, I brought the quote up and then commented how "space monkeys like to bring it up".


But it is a powerful quote.

There are a few quotes that have stuck with me. I remember first watching the documentary Lost Boys on the discovery or history channel in 2000 or 2001 and was the first documentary on Columbine, I was 14 or 15 at the time and I found it so relevant as I was going through some major crap at the time and even taped it on an old VHS. I forgot all about it then for some reason I wanted to know more about it a few years ago and I became obsessed with it.

But the quotes I remember from that documentary are 

CHS student in Lost Boys documentary wrote:

Those kids were sick in the head to begin with...everyone says they'd been planning it for a year, so they've been sick for a year...you can't say that just because jocks get away with stuff it's ok to go into the school and kill people. If they wanted to kill a bunch of jocks they'd have come in the weight room in the morning and there'd have been 50 football players...sitting ducks, but they didn't, they came in and started shooting everybody.

At the time I took this to be the only plausible truth that only "sick people" would do that. I don't recall there being any mention of Dylan's depression or Eric's psychiatric care throughout the documentary the only real link to possible mental health was when Randy Brown mentioned Eric being on Luvox. In hindsight it was eye-opening to see how everybody they interviewed seem to have come up to their own conclusion as to why it happened, it even showed someone shooting a tv and blaming television for brain-washing kids whilst their parents were neglecting them.

Szabo wrote:

I can't imagine what it must feel like for parent to write about such deeds commited by their own child.

I'm not a parent, but I would notify myself for the responsibility. Again, I'm thinking, can she ever truly realize what occurred.

ShadowedGoddess wrote:

Sue's book was a hard one to read.

It is hard for me to read too, because there are so many words I'm unfamiliar with. I rarely speak english.
I like to read in english to understand the language better, but this book is a lot harder to read than Brooks Brown's because of the language it is using - it is not written by a +20y boy who has note gone to college.

I liked this one, and I assume it describes well what happened and why:

April 20, 1999

Today the school became one, but with fifteen less
Gaining only demons meant to anger, to depress
We handled those demons, and rose over our hate
To see that finding love was all but too late
The ones that had fallen took from us their joy
Their sweet innocence of being a girl, being a boy
The ones who remained grew old in a day
For the mistakes of two boys, the rest had to pay
As we look back over the smiles and the tears
We know our memories will destroy the pain, over the years
Myself, I know, has been dealt an insane hand
But I know, eventually, I must take a stand
They may call us Columbine - in name we are
But the real name we earned surpasses Columbine by far
The only name I care about that the media was giving
Is the truth about who we are: WE THE LIVING

by Brooks Brown in his book

and one was where brooks said it is easier to kill kids in columbine than be popular

I have since learned that perfectionism is frequently a characteristic of kids with special abilities. Ironically, it can sometimes undermine their potential. A mistake or setback that most kids would shrug off can devastate a child with unrealistic and unattainable standards. It can lower their self-esteem, causing them to disengage from the intellectual challenges that once fired them up. In retrospect, I believe that Dylan's innate perfectionism, and our inability to help him manage his unrealistic expectations for himself, contributed to his feelings of alienation at the end of his life.
A mother's reckoning - living in the aftermath of tragedy, Sue Klebold/Andrew Solomon

harri tp wrote:

I have since learned that perfectionism is frequently a characteristic of kids with special abilities. Ironically, it can sometimes undermine their potential. A mistake or setback that most kids would shrug off can devastate a child with unrealistic and unattainable standards. It can lower their self-esteem, causing them to disengage from the intellectual challenges that once fired them up.

Here we have Sue is falling back on Dylan's early age stay at a school for "gifted children" (which never amounted to anything down the road neither for him, nor for Brooks) to bring up the image of the Dylan she wants to remember, as opposed to the Dylan that was. (Also, his brother became a drug addict and also wasn't a great suycess as far as parenting goes).

Hate to sound cynical, but I think this is just Sue trying very hard to present the teenage Dylan as a "kid with special abilities" he never was, instead of the socially awkward, weird introverted guy everyone else knew.

Remember that we are talking about a guy who never excelled in either, sports, academia or social life. H


I wonder, if that is how Sue interacted with Dylan when he was still alive? That she tried very hard for him to be the "gifted kid Dylan in her mind" and thus perhaps in some way ignored the actual Dylan as he really was. Maybe that's one of the reasons Dylan doesn't seem to be anywhere near as attached to his parents as Eric was?