I'm Thinking of Ending Things

“You can’t fake a thought. And this is what I’m thinking.”

On the first page of the novel, the protagonist describes her thought of “ending things” and relates a quote from her boyfriend Jake in which he explains a thought is always truthful. The protagonist takes this to be true and, in this quote, demonstrates the novel’s theme of the truthfulness of the protagonist’s thoughts.

“Once he called me therapeutic. I’d never heard that from anyone before.”

As the protagonist describes the beginning of her relationship with Jake, she mentions he has never called her sexy but has instead called her “therapeutic.” This quote demonstrates how Jake does not conform to the protagonist’s generalized expectations of men.

“How do we know when something is menacing? What cues us that something is not innocent? Instinct always trumps reason.”

The protagonist is describing the memory of the man outside her childhood bedroom window when she questions the way people perceive a threat. This quote not only foreshadows the protagonist’s uneasiness about Jake but serves to illustrate the novel’s entire narrative as a psychological thriller.