Are you sure self-pity is a luxury you can afford, Jack?
She didn’t see him at first. She was watching the dancers. Her color was high, and there were deep dimples at the corners of her mouth. She looked nine miles out of place, but he had never loved her more. This was Willa on the edge of a smile.
We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why. Not until the future eats the present, anyway. We know when it’s too late.
I think everybody has experiences from time to time they can’t explain. They are peculiarities. Usually we just dismiss them because they are uncomfortable to think about.
Sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It’s what you say when you spill a cup of coffee or throw a gutter ball when you’re bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love.
If there is love, smallpox scars are as pretty as dimples. – Japanese Proverb.
I saw something even more beautiful than a sense of humor: an appreciation for life’s essential absurdity.
Death was no less a miracle than birth.
She nods. You’re good for the ones you love. You want to be good for the ones you love, because you know that your time with them will end up being too short, no matter how long it is.
When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, ‘Why god? Why me?’ and the thundering voice of God answered, ‘There’s just something about you that pisses me off.’
God wiped snot out of his nose and that was you.
Writing is magic, as much the water of life as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. Drink and be filled up.
Alone. Yes, that’s the key word, the most awful word in the English tongue. Murder doesn’t hold a candle to it and hell is only a poor synonym.
Her body was wrapped in shadows like moth wings, like rose-petals.
I write about things that scare me. I’ve never written a snake story in my life. I myself have never written a story about snakes because they don’t scare me. I write about rats because they scare the hell out of me.
I don’t like the idea that I am going to come back as an ant or a sparrow if I don’t get along in the great karma of life.
I want to write about spiders. To me, this is the one theme that cuts right across and scares just about everybody. Spiders, to me, are just about the most horrible, awful things that I can think about. I think everyone is afraid of spiders.
Do any men grow up or do they only come of age?
Love, the simplest, strongest, and most unforgiving of all emotions.
The town kept its secrets, and the Marsten House brooded over it like a ruined king.