I realize the blackness of sleep is circling my head. It’s been there a while, biding its time and growing closer with each revolution. I give up on rage, which at this point has become a formality, and make a mental note to get angry in the morning.
He only had the imperfect medium of words.
Age is a terrible thief. Just when you’re getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back.
The business of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable” was one of the aphorisms his boss liked to quote.
It’s like Charlie told the cop. For this old man, this is home.
Then she turns to Midnight and perches delicately on his lowered back. He rises, arches his neck, and carries Marlena from the big top. The rest of the horses follow, once again grouped by color, crowding each other to stay close to their mistress.
Just when you’re getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head...
The person following is never in control, which she knows full well and which is exactly why she does it.
I don’t like outlining, because books are organic things. Sometimes a book doesn’t want to be written in a certain way.
The only thing that makes me crazier than writing is not writing.
It’s just a crazy damned life, that’s all...
I stare at her for a long moment. I want to kiss her. I want to kiss her more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life.
They grew fat and happy – the horses, not the children, or Marlena for that matter.
Honey, I plan to marry you the moment the ink is dry on that death certificate.
How hard can it be to find a girl and an elephant for Christ’s sake?
The sky the sky- same as it always was.
Must protect my little pockets of happiness.
Life goes on with fragile normalcy.
After sixty-one years together, she simply clutched my hand and exhaled.
But it all zipped by. One minute Marlena and I were up to our eyeballs, and the next thing we knew the kids were borrowing the car and fleeing the coop for college. And now, here I am. In my nineties and alone.