After the boy at the supermarket had called her those names, Evelyn Couch had felt violated. Raped by words. Stripped of Everything.
When you’re a child you think time will never go by, but when you hit about twenty, time passes like you’re on the fast train to Memphis.
Nothing had come easy to him. School, sports, or girls... it seemed to Oswald that everyone else had come into this world with a set of instructions but him. From the beginning he had always felt like a pair of white socks and brown shoes in a roomful of tuxedos. He had never really gotten a break in life, and now it was all over.
At the reception, she had introduced a man to his own wife. Twice.
You save up all your energy for the big push – when you need it. And when you’re up there, concentrate. Remain calm and steady as she goes. Don’t look right, don’t look left, don’t let yourself get rattled, just stay the course, nice and easy all the way.
Jerry Falwell would be responsible for the raising of all illegitimate children who had no homes;.
And you can’t be happy and in a rage at the same time.
She felt her heart open and fill with the pure wonder of being alive and making it through.
No, non era la morte a spaventarla. Era questa sua vita di ogni giorno, che cominciava a ricordarle troppo da vicino la grigia sala d’aspetto del reparto di terapia intensiva.
Ci sono persone magnifiche su questa terra, che se ne vanno in giro travestite da normali esseri umani.
The Joy of a Loving God.
All he was doing was just sitting around killing time, looking at the birds and waiting to die.
If good wishes had been ten-dollar bills, he would have left a rich man.
Just like two and two always add up to four, kindness and forgiveness is always right, hate and revenge is always wrong.
Cook to a thick paste over slow flame. Cool. Cream sugars and vanilla with butter and shortening. Beat until light and fluffy. Blend in salt. Mix in cooled paste. Beat until fluffy. Blend. Should look like whipped cream.
Towanda the Magnanimous, Righter of Wrongs and Queen without Compare.
Evelyn was forty-eight years old and she had gotten lost somewhere along the way.
So in the long run, it didn’t matter at all if you had been good or not. The girls in high school who had “gone all the way” had not wound up living in back alleys in shame and disgrace, like she thought they would; they wound up happily or unhappily married, just like the rest of them. So all that struggle to stay pure, the fear of being touched, the fear of driving a boy mad with passion by any gesture, and the ultimate fear – getting pregnant – all that wasted energy was for nothing.
But that was Lenore: the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral.
Upset? I’m just thinking about staging my own death is all.
When we arrived in Wilmington, looking forward to a steak with all the trimmings, one snooty puffball says to us, “We don’t accept women in trousers,” to which Willy says, “Would you accept a boot in your behind?