Had you not been born, you would not know that it is like to be alive, and without life, death is impossible to understand.
Allure goes beyond appearances to the way they grace the world. Some women propel themselves by means of an internal gyroscope. Others glide through life as if on ice skates. Some women convey their tortured lives through their eyes; others encircle you in the music of their laughter.
I am gone and am not coming back, but I remember everything.
Love makes us do wicked things.
To lose one’s name is the beginning of forgetting.
I followed her into the library. The pale light from our chamber below dissipated in the room, but I could still make out – my heart leapt at the sight – row after row, shelf above shelf, floor to ceiling, a city of books. Speck turned to me and asked, Now, what shall we read first?
As I let go of the past, the past let go of me.
Ben Farmer brings a legend to life in Evangeline, evoking with grace and panache the travails of the Acadians in mid-eighteenth century America from Nova Scotia to New Orleans. Farmer is a wonderful storyteller, and readers won’t soon forget this tale of love and fortitude. Simply riveting.
Imaginary friends often leave without warning.
Love is the madness which allows us to believe in magic.
Why do we believe in things we cannot see?
The most merciless thing in the world is love. When love flees, all that remains is memory to compensate.
In the dream house, the boy listened for the monster under his bed.
He could be alone with her, but it was difficult learning to be alone without her.
Never enter a toy shop after midnight.
The few other shoppers were women like herself. Widows, perhaps, but grandmothers surely, out hunting for birthday gifts or bargains to store away for next winter. They shuffled in a daze from bin to bin, and Margaret read in every face some suffering or disappointment, their hopes and dreams marked down, 40 percent off.
Whatever had made those marks seemed to have come out of the water.
He put his life on hold as he waited for his life to begin.
Everybody is on something these days. It’s a racket. Overprescribing, masking the problem.
Pretty soon he would be stronger than she was, and bigger, some real violence in his fist. The day was coming when the ordinary demons of adolescence would wrestle with his private devils, and it could be a hell.