The whole idea of the sermon was how people connect up in various ways, seen and unseen, and that Mr. Peg had tied a lot of knots in the big minnow seine that keeps us all together. Dead but still here, in other words. That’s what killed me the worst.
Aunts standing close in the kitchen like cigarettes in the pack, uncles splayed on furniture like butts in the ashtray.
I would make one of Aunt June as Wonder Nurse, putting a new heart back inside a boy that had his own torn out.
I wondered if DSS had anything like Step 9, where you eventually have to apologize to all the kids you’ve screwed over.
Brain of a deer tick, but that’s not something to hold against a running back.
Somebody one time gave me the one where the boy is hateful and sent to bed with no supper, and in his head he’s a monster and goes to this island where it’s all wild monsters like him, seriously ticked off, making their wild rumpus.
Battle of Blair Mountain, that turned into the biggest war in America ever, other than the civil one. Twenty thousand guys from all over these mountains, fighting in regiments. They wore red bandannas on their necks to show they were all on the same side, working men. Mr. Armstrong said people calling us rednecks, that goes back to the red bandannas.
You get used to it, not in the good way, to the extent of the entire world oftentimes feeling like a place where you weren’t invited. If you’ve been here, you know. If not, must be nice.
Sophie’s mother had to leave her dad, to get sober. She says as long as you’re living with an addict, you’re addicted.
It’s in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.” Charles Dickens, David Copperfield.
A city is the weirdest, loneliest thing.
Maggot calmed me down by explaining Bible stories were a category of superhero comic. Not to be confused with real life.
The dads at home drinking beer in their underwear, the moms at the grocery with their SNAP coupons. The army recruiters in shiny gold buttons come to harvest their jackpot of hopeless futures.
The elder daughter looks up, her pale eyes steady. “But we are here, Papa.” “Yes, you are.” “Why don’t you want us?” “Oh, God, I do.” He kneels down and takes them both in his arms and pulls them against his chest. He understands for the first time in his life that love weighs nothing. Oh God, his girls are as light as birds.
Kids up there evidently had brains coming out their ears, to the extent of needing to meet up with other kids for brain-to-brain combat.
Trust the road. Because nobody stays, in the long run you’re on your own with your ghosts. You’re the ship and they’re the bottle.
Keeping secrets from young ears only plants seeds in between them.
A kid is a terrible thing to be, in charge of nothing.
If you are one of the few that still hasn’t been, let me tell you what a city is. A hot mess not easily escaped.
Live long enough, and all things you ever loved can turn around to scorch you blind. The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between.