Previous
Michael McQueary
Jerry Sandusky is a convicted sex offender and former assistant coach for the Penn State football team. Sandusky had just retired as defensive coordinator of the Penn State football team when Mark McQueary, who was then the assistant coach of the football team, witnessed him molest an underage boy in the locker room showers in February 2001. Sandusky founded The Second Mile, a nonprofit organization to aid Pennsylvania’s underprivileged youth, in 1977, and he met his victims through their participation in the organization. Sandusky was a beloved figure in a community that took great pride in their football team, and the allegations shocked everyone when they finally came to light in 2011. Sandusky is alleged to have begun assaulting children as early as 1994. The court and the public blamed the delayed investigation and trial on Penn State’s leadership, claiming they had willfully protected Sandusky, enabling him to commit further acts of abuse.
Jerry Sandusky Quotes in Talking to Strangers
The Talking to Strangers quotes below are all either spoken by Jerry Sandusky or refer to Jerry Sandusky. 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:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
You should have known. There were all kinds of red flags. You had doubts. Levine would say that’s the wrong way to think about the problem. The right question is: were there enough red flags to push you over the threshold of belief? If there weren’t, then by defaulting to truth you were only being human.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5
Quotes
If every coach is assumed to be a pedophile, then no parent would let their child leave the house, and no sane person would ever volunteer to be a coach. We default to truth—even when that decision carries terrible risks—because we have no choice. Society cannot function otherwise. And in those rare instances where trust ends in betrayal, those victimized by default to truth deserve our sympathy, not our censure.
Get the entire Talking to Strangers LitChart as a printable PDF.
Jerry Sandusky Quotes in Talking to Strangers
The Talking to Strangers quotes below are all either spoken by Jerry Sandusky or refer to Jerry Sandusky. 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:
).
Chapter 3
Quotes
You should have known. There were all kinds of red flags. You had doubts. Levine would say that’s the wrong way to think about the problem. The right question is: were there enough red flags to push you over the threshold of belief? If there weren’t, then by defaulting to truth you were only being human.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5
Quotes
If every coach is assumed to be a pedophile, then no parent would let their child leave the house, and no sane person would ever volunteer to be a coach. We default to truth—even when that decision carries terrible risks—because we have no choice. Society cannot function otherwise. And in those rare instances where trust ends in betrayal, those victimized by default to truth deserve our sympathy, not our censure.
