There is no such thing as bad people. We're all just people who sometimes do bad things.

There is no such thing as bad people. We're all just people who sometimes do bad things. is the novel's central moral maxim, first spoken by Ryle Kincaid to Lily Bloom on the rooftop where they meet, and later echoed by Lily as the founding philosophy of her floral shop and as a desperate plea to save her marriage. The phrase recurs at three pivotal moments in the story, and its shifting meaning — from a stranger's consolation to a business theme to a victim's rationalization — traces Lily's arc from accepting human fallibility to confronting the limits of forgiveness. It is the book's most quoted line, and its fate mirrors the fate of Lily's relationship with Ryle: a beautiful idea that cannot survive contact with the reality of abuse.

Origin on the Rooftop

The maxim enters the story on the night Lily and Ryle first meet, when they are both sitting on a rooftop, staring up at the sky. Lily has just confessed something she says she has never admitted even to herself: that as a child, she found herself looking forward to the nights her parents would fight, because she knew that if her father hit her mother, the two weeks that followed would be great. She describes her father's pattern of abuse — how he would get so angry during fights that he would sometimes hit her mother, then spend the next week or two making up for it with flowers and nice dinners, and sometimes buy Lily things because he knew she hated it when they fought. She tells Ryle that the abuse was inevitable with their marriage and became their norm, and that when she got older, she realized that not doing something about it made her just as guilty. She concludes that she spent most of her life hating her father for being such a bad person, but she is not so sure she is much better, and that maybe they are both bad people.

Ryle looks over at her with a thoughtful expression and answers pointedly: "Lily, there is no such thing as bad people. We're all just people who sometimes do bad things." The words strike Lily silent. She reflects that no one is exclusively bad, nor is anyone exclusively good, and that some are just forced to work harder at suppressing the bad. The exchange ends with Lily telling Ryle it is his turn to share something about himself, and the maxim becomes the foundation of their connection — a philosophical gift from a stranger that Lily carries with her.

The Philosophy of Lily Bloom's

Lily later makes the maxim the theme of her floral shop, Lily Bloom's. When she is planning the shop with her friend Allysa Kincaid, she explains that someone once told her that there is no such thing as bad people, and that they are all just people who sometimes do bad things. She says the idea stuck with her because it is so true, and that everyone has a little bit of good and evil in them. She wants to make that the shop's theme: instead of painting the walls a putrid sweet color, they paint them dark purple with black accents. Instead of only putting out the usual pastel displays of flowers in boring crystal vases that make people think of life, they go edgy — brave and bold. They put out displays of darker flowers wrapped in things like leather or silver chains, and rather than put them in crystal vases, they stick them in black onyx or purple velvet vases lined with silver studs. Allysa initially looks concerned, seeing only the darkest side of Lily's vision, but Lily works to get her on board. The maxim thus becomes not just a personal belief but a commercial aesthetic — a way of saying that beauty and darkness can coexist, and that a flower shop need not be only pastel and sweet.

A Plea for the Walk-Away Agreement

The maxim returns at the story's darkest moment, after Ryle has hurt Lily and she is trying to justify what happened. She recalls that her whole life, she knew exactly what she would do if a man ever treated her the way her father treated her mother: she would leave, and it would never happen again. But she did not leave, and now she is sitting with bruises and cuts on her body at the hands of the man who is supposed to love her — at the hands of her own husband — and still she is trying to justify what happened. She walks over to Ryle, grabs both of his hands in hers, and speaks to him with nothing but naked truth. She reminds him of what he said to her on the roof that night: "There is no such thing as bad people. We're all just people who sometimes do bad things." He nods and squeezes her hands. She tells him he is not a bad person, that she knows that, and that he can still protect her. She proposes that when he is upset, he should just walk away, and she will walk away too, leaving the situation until he is calm enough to talk about it. She tells him he is not a monster, only human, and that as humans they cannot expect to shoulder all of their pain — sometimes they have to share it with the people who love them so they do not come crashing down from the weight of it all. She asks him to ask her for help, and says they will get through it.

This is the maxim's most painful deployment: a victim using her abuser's own words to beg him to stop hurting her, and to offer him a second chance. The walk-away agreement she proposes is a direct attempt to operationalize the philosophy — if Ryle is not a bad person but only a person who sometimes does bad things, then perhaps the bad things can be prevented by walking away before they happen. The plea shows how deeply Lily has internalized Ryle's rooftop wisdom, and how she has turned it into a survival strategy.

The Limits of Forgiveness

The maxim's final echo comes in a conversation between Lily and her mother, Jenny Bloom, after Lily has left Ryle. Lily tells her mother that most of her feels like she will never be able to trust Ryle again, but that a huge part of her grieves what she had with him — that they were so good together, and that the times she spent with him were some of the best moments of her life. She confesses that sometimes, when she is really missing him, she tells herself that maybe it was not that bad, and that maybe she could put up with him when he is at his worst just so she can have him when he is at his best. Jenny puts her hand on top of Lily's and rubs her thumb back and forth, saying she knows exactly what Lily means, but that the last thing Lily wants to do is lose sight of her limit, and she pleads with Lily not to allow that to happen. Lily has no idea what her mother means by that, and Jenny sees the confusion in her expression, squeezes her arm, and explains in more detail.

The maxim's arc is thus complete: it begins as a stranger's consolation, becomes a business philosophy, turns into a victim's plea, and finally reveals its danger. The idea that there are no bad people, only people who sometimes do bad things, is what allows Lily to forgive Ryle again and again — and it is what her mother warns her against, telling her not to lose sight of her limit. The phrase that once gave Lily comfort becomes the very thing that traps her, and her mother's warning is the novel's quiet rebuttal to Ryle's rooftop wisdom. The maxim is not wrong, the book suggests, but it is incomplete: people may not be bad, but they can still do unforgivable things, and love cannot be the price of forgetting that.