She’d never been good at banter; it was like a skipping rope whose rhythm she couldn’t master enough to jump in with confidence. The war seemed not to exist here, despite the presence of officers in uniform.
A dog’s love is forever. We expect infidelity from one another; we marvel at this one’s ability to hold that one’s interest for fifty, sixty years; perhaps some of us feel a secret contempt for monogamy even as we extol it, wishing parole for its weary participants. But dogs do not receive our sympathy or our suspicion – from dogs we presume an eternal adoration.
Problems he couldn’t solve made him angry.
We work in the realm of the impression.
What moved Ted, mashed some delicate glassware in his chest, was the quiet of their interaction, the absence of drama or tears as they gazed at each other, touching gently.
He liked the thought that his own power would one day be refined into translucence, with no memory of the blood and earth that had generated it.
Maintaining an appearance mattered as much – more – than what was underneath. The deeper things could come and go, but what broke the surface would be lodged in everyone’s memory.
He’d take danger over sorrow every time.
Hindsight creates the illusion that your life has led you inevitably to the present moment.
He’s rigged a tiny cassette player with a small set of foam earphones to listen to demo tapes and rough mixes. Occasionally he’ll hand the device to Mindy, wanting her opinion, and each time, the experience of music pouring directly against her eardrums – hers alone – is a shock that makes her eyes well up; the privacy of it, the way it transforms her surroundings into a golden montage, as if she were looking back on this lark in Africa with Lou from some distant future.
She could feel the logic of mechanical parts in her fingertips; this came so naturally that she could only think that other people didn’t really try.
The best possible outcome of marriage was a wealthy, childless widowhood.
As she worked, Anna glanced occasionally at the Flossie Flirt doll wedged at the end of a shelf. She had wanted one so violently two years ago that some of her desperation seemed to have broken off and stayed inside her. It was strange and painful to discover that old longing now, in this place.
Lust made an idiot of everyone it touched – Dexter felt stupidity shrouding his head like a hood in the shape of a dunce’s cap.
We work in the realm of the impression.” Nell hailed a taxi and directed the driver to East.
It had been years since she’d fabricated a story from whole cloth. It brought a sense of returning to an earlier time when she was questioned more often and had fewer evasions at her disposal. Besides, she thought, looking into Rose’s relieved and joyful face, people practically told you the lies they wanted to hear.
I like to be near water whenever possible, don’t you?” he said, gazing into the dark. “Melville put it best: ‘Nothing will content men but the extremest limit of the land’ – but that’s not it, I can’t recall the quote. It’s in our nature to seek out the edge. Even on a golf course.
Their insularity made him envious – not just of the men but all three of them. They were working together, two men and a girl, with evident ease. Even after the diving suit was on and she no longer looked like a girl, he was resentful of their shared knowledge, their nomenclature and expertise.
Men said “Girls are weak” when in fact girls made them weak.
A weird sequence of weather events had left a thin skin of ice around every tree and branch and twig. Each time the wind blew, a splintery groan issued from all directions at once.