I mean that she was complicated. Everybody is,” Ling said quietly. “Don’t erase her like that. She deserves better.
It’s over, her mind whispered. There’s still hope, her heart insisted.
But if you abandoned the idea that such a paradise awaited you, and believed that you would live this life over and over again, would you not live the life you had more thoughtfully?
Idealism is just an escape from reality. There is no utopia.
People you loved could be gone in a breath. So why didn’t knowing that make it any easier to be vulnerable? To tell people that you loved them, that you were hurting, that you were afraid, or that, sometimes, at five in the morning, you were so alone in your own skin that you watched the weak light play across the ceiling, willing it toward dawn?
Evie was still crying and so didn’t know what Sam whispered to Theta over the top of her head. She only knew that now there were two sets of arms around her, holding her close, holding her up. She only knew that she had family after all.
You must work always to understand your own heart so that it cannot be used against you.
There is no greater power on this earth than story. People think boundaries and borders build nations. Nonsense – words do.
Make a better history.
Ain’t that the way of the world, now? Good luck turns bad. Bad luck turns good. Just a big rolling craps game played between this world and the next, and we the dice getting tossed around.
Even Evie believed in something, that something being Evie a lot of the time.
Alliteration. It’s when you repeat the same consonant in a phrase,” Memphis explained. “Huh. I was hoping it was something dirty.
It’s funny. I used to feel that I wouldn’t care if I died. I just kept throwing myself at life, hoping I’d hit a bull’s-eye eventually. I thought death would be a relief from all that feeling. A relief not to have all that pain. Not to care so much,′ Evie said.
People want to be safe, not free.
Unspeakable nightmares surround the men now. They would scream if they could. It’s no use. The dream has them, and it will not relinquish its hold. Ever. Back in their beds on Mott Street. the men’s bodies go limp. But behind their closed lids, their eyes move frantically as, one by one, they are pulled deeper and deeper into a nightmare from which they will never, ever wake.
Long shadows of evening creep up the walls, inching closer. Gradually, they reach fully across us, holding us in the stillness that only night can bring. In the hazy gloom of dusk, we are silhouettes of ourselves, reduced to our very essence. The night grows bolder. Unafraid, it opens its mouth and swallows us whole.
Why was there so much silence between men?
What I can’t figure out is why you gotta make yourself crackers trying to be somebody you can’t ever be instead of just letting yourself be the one and only Evie O’Neill.
Henry looked from Ling to Alma and back again. His mouth slid into a sly smile. “Oh my.
Theta rolled over, facing Evie, their noses nearly touching. “Evil?” “Yes?” “I love you. Now, shut up and go to sleep.