The Lovely Bones

by

Alice Sebold

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Lovely Bones makes teaching easy.

Lindsey Salmon Character Analysis

Susie’s sister Lindsey is just one year younger than her, and Susie takes pride in being the eldest. When Susie’s life is cut short, however, she must accept the pain—and, occasionally, the joy—of watching her younger sister soon surpass her in age and in experience. Lindsey is stoic, self-contained, and headstrong. She shows little emotion in the wake of her sister’s death, and it is only once she starts dating her classmate Samuel Heckler that she begins to open up and let go. Susie, watching Lindsey and Samuel’s relationship unfold, feels a peculiar mix of jealousy, desire, pride, and happiness. However, as Lindsey, frustrated by the lack of forward movement in Susie’s case, takes matters into her own hands and begins investigating Mr. Harvey, Susie suddenly understands that though her little sister might surpass her, she will never stop loving her or fighting for her. Susie’s vicarious living is done most directly through Lindsey, but as time passes and as the gulf between them widens, each sister learns—slowly, painfully, but surely—how to live without the other.

Lindsey Salmon Quotes in The Lovely Bones

The The Lovely Bones quotes below are all either spoken by Lindsey Salmon or refer to Lindsey Salmon. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Justice and Injustice Theme Icon
).
Chapter 10 Quotes

Under a rowboat that was too old and worn to float, Lindsey lay down on the earth with Samuel Heckler, and he held her. Samuel's back was flush against the ground, and he brought my sister close in to his body to protect her from the dampness of the quick summer rain. Their breath began to heat the small space beneath the boat, and he could not stop it—his penis stiffened inside his jeans.

Lindsey reached her hand over.

"I'm sorry…” He began.

"I'm ready," my sister said.

At fourteen, my sister sailed away from me into a place I'd never been. In the walls of my sex there was horror and blood, in the walls of hers there were windows.

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Lindsey Salmon (speaker), Samuel Heckler (speaker)
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

My neighbors and teachers, friends and family, circled an arbitrary spot not far from where I'd been killed. My father, sister and brother heard the singing again once they were outside. Everything in my father leaned and pitched toward the warmth and light. He wanted so badly to have me remembered in the minds and hearts of everyone. I knew something as I watched: almost everyone was saying goodbye to me. I was becoming one of many little-girl-losts. They would go back to their homes and put me to rest, a letter from the past never reopened or reread.

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Jack Salmon, Lindsey Salmon, Buckley Salmon
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

At twenty-one Lindsey was many things I would never become, but I barely grieved this list anymore. Still, I roved where she roved. I collected my college diploma and rode on the back of Samuel's bike, clinging on to him with my arms wrapped around his waist, pressing into his back for warmth . . .

Okay, it was Lindsey. I realized that. But in watching her I found I could get lost more than with anyone else.

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Lindsey Salmon, Samuel Heckler
Page Number: 232
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

Above his bed the clock ticked off the minutes and I thought of the game Lindsey and I had played in the yard together: "he loves me/he loves me not" picked out on a daisy's petals. I could hear the clock casting my own two greatest wishes back to me in this same rhythm: "Die for me/don't die for me, die for me/don't die for me." I could not help myself, it seemed, as I tore at his weakening heart. If he died, I would have him forever. Was this so wrong to want?

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Jack Salmon, Lindsey Salmon, Buckley Salmon
Page Number: 258
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

On the flight to Philadelphia, she sat alone in the middle of a row of three seats. She could not help but think of how, if she were a mother traveling, there would be two seats filled beside her. One for Lindsey. One for Buckley. But though she was, by definition, a mother, she had at some point ceased to be one too. She couldn't claim that right and privilege after missing more than half a decade of their lives. She now knew that being a mother was a calling, something plenty of young girls dreamed of being. But my mother had never had that dream, and she had been punished in the most horrible and unimaginable way for never having wanted me. I watched her on the plane, and I sent a wish into the clouds for her release. Her body grew heavy with the dread of what would come but in this heaviness was at least relief. The stewardess handed her a small blue pillow and for a little while she fell asleep.

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Abigail Salmon, Lindsey Salmon, Buckley Salmon
Page Number: 266
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

As I watched my family sip champagne, I thought about how their lives trailed backward and forward from my death and then, I saw, as Samuel took the daring step of kissing Lindsey in a room full of family, became borne aloft away from it. These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent—that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Lindsey Salmon, Samuel Heckler
Page Number: 319-320
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Lovely Bones PDF

Lindsey Salmon Quotes in The Lovely Bones

The The Lovely Bones quotes below are all either spoken by Lindsey Salmon or refer to Lindsey Salmon. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Justice and Injustice Theme Icon
).
Chapter 10 Quotes

Under a rowboat that was too old and worn to float, Lindsey lay down on the earth with Samuel Heckler, and he held her. Samuel's back was flush against the ground, and he brought my sister close in to his body to protect her from the dampness of the quick summer rain. Their breath began to heat the small space beneath the boat, and he could not stop it—his penis stiffened inside his jeans.

Lindsey reached her hand over.

"I'm sorry…” He began.

"I'm ready," my sister said.

At fourteen, my sister sailed away from me into a place I'd never been. In the walls of my sex there was horror and blood, in the walls of hers there were windows.

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Lindsey Salmon (speaker), Samuel Heckler (speaker)
Page Number: 125
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 16 Quotes

My neighbors and teachers, friends and family, circled an arbitrary spot not far from where I'd been killed. My father, sister and brother heard the singing again once they were outside. Everything in my father leaned and pitched toward the warmth and light. He wanted so badly to have me remembered in the minds and hearts of everyone. I knew something as I watched: almost everyone was saying goodbye to me. I was becoming one of many little-girl-losts. They would go back to their homes and put me to rest, a letter from the past never reopened or reread.

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Jack Salmon, Lindsey Salmon, Buckley Salmon
Page Number: 209
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

At twenty-one Lindsey was many things I would never become, but I barely grieved this list anymore. Still, I roved where she roved. I collected my college diploma and rode on the back of Samuel's bike, clinging on to him with my arms wrapped around his waist, pressing into his back for warmth . . .

Okay, it was Lindsey. I realized that. But in watching her I found I could get lost more than with anyone else.

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Lindsey Salmon, Samuel Heckler
Page Number: 232
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

Above his bed the clock ticked off the minutes and I thought of the game Lindsey and I had played in the yard together: "he loves me/he loves me not" picked out on a daisy's petals. I could hear the clock casting my own two greatest wishes back to me in this same rhythm: "Die for me/don't die for me, die for me/don't die for me." I could not help myself, it seemed, as I tore at his weakening heart. If he died, I would have him forever. Was this so wrong to want?

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Jack Salmon, Lindsey Salmon, Buckley Salmon
Page Number: 258
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 19 Quotes

On the flight to Philadelphia, she sat alone in the middle of a row of three seats. She could not help but think of how, if she were a mother traveling, there would be two seats filled beside her. One for Lindsey. One for Buckley. But though she was, by definition, a mother, she had at some point ceased to be one too. She couldn't claim that right and privilege after missing more than half a decade of their lives. She now knew that being a mother was a calling, something plenty of young girls dreamed of being. But my mother had never had that dream, and she had been punished in the most horrible and unimaginable way for never having wanted me. I watched her on the plane, and I sent a wish into the clouds for her release. Her body grew heavy with the dread of what would come but in this heaviness was at least relief. The stewardess handed her a small blue pillow and for a little while she fell asleep.

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Abigail Salmon, Lindsey Salmon, Buckley Salmon
Page Number: 266
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

As I watched my family sip champagne, I thought about how their lives trailed backward and forward from my death and then, I saw, as Samuel took the daring step of kissing Lindsey in a room full of family, became borne aloft away from it. These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent—that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life.

Related Characters: Susie Salmon (speaker), Lindsey Salmon, Samuel Heckler
Page Number: 319-320
Explanation and Analysis: