Aren’t eccentricities fairly common among overachievers.
From that moment on, he would never stop seeing her, not in his minds eye – not whenever he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. She would always be there.
But Vienna was in its death phase; it lay still and let me look at it, and think about it, and look again. In a living city, I could never have noticed so much. Living cities don’t hold still.
It was in looking at sea gulls that it first occurred to Homer Wells that he was free.
She felt if she ever had children she would love them no less when they were twenty than when they were two; they might need you more at twenty, she thought. What do you really need when you’re two? In the hospital, the babies were the easiest patients. The older they got, the more they needed; and the less anyone wanted or loved them.
Americans are suckers for an English accent.
There is often a defining experience that marks any significant change in the course of a person’s life.
A loving couple will say things to each other – you know, Danny – just to make each other feel good about a situation, even if the situation isn’t good, or it they shouldn’t feel good about i,” Ketchum said. “A loving couple will make up their own rules, as if these made-up rules were as reliable or counted for as much as the rules everyone else tried to live by – if you know what I mean.
But not even a drunk can sleep through Boellmann’s Toccata – not even outside the church, apparently. Alice enjoyed acting out how the drunken down-and-out had presented himself.
It seemed to Alice that the drunk should have been struck dead for using such language in a church, but before God could take any action against the down-and-out, William resumed playing – with a vengeance.
I was four, and I sincerely believe that this is my first memory of life itself – as opposed to what I was told happened, as opposed to the pictures other people have painted for me.
Do not forget the past; forgive the past.
He was an obstetrician; he delivered babies into the world. His colleagues called this ‘the Lord’s work.’ And he was an abortionist; he delivered mothers, too. His colleagues called this ‘the Devil’s work,’ but it was all the Lord’s work to Wilbur Larch. As Mrs. Maxwell had observed: ‘The true physician’s soul cannot be too broad and gentle.
I wanted my cousins to like Owen, because I liked him – he was my best friend – but, at the same time, I didn’t want everything to be so enjoyable that I’d have to invite Owen to Sawyer Depot the next time I went. I was sure that would be disastrous. And I was nervous that my cousins would make fun of Owen; and I confess I was nervous that Owen would embarrass me – I am ashamed of feeling that, to this day.
These Princes of Maine, these Kings of New England, these orphans of Saint Cloud’s – whoever they were, they were the heroes of their own lives. That much Homer could see in the darkness, that much Dr. Larch, like a father, gave him.
And from that moment of his introduction to my cousins, I would frequently consider the issue of exactly how human Owen Meany was; there is no doubt that, in the dazzling configurations of the sun that poured through the attic skylight, he looked like a descending angel – a tiny but fiery god, sent to adjudicate the errors of our ways.
When you lie, it makes you feel in charge of your life. Telling lies is very seductive to orphans. I know because I tell them, too. I love to lie. When you lie, you feel as if you have cheated fate – your own, and everybody else’s.
How I live matters more than what I do. I have ambitions for the quality of how I live. I have no ambition for making money... and I’d have time to read enough to be a constant source of information, ideas and language.
When somebody touches you... and you really don’t wanna be touched, that’s not really being touched. You still got you inside of you. And nobody has touched you. Not really. You still got you inside of you. You believe that.
Grief is contagious,” Marion began again. “I didn’t want you to catch my grief, Eddie. I really didn’t want Ruth to catch it.