“The Crone tires quickly and reaches out for the velvet draperies, sits on the divan, breathing heavily. She's too ancient to have a name any longer. When she coughs you can hear the ages rattling inside her shrunken frame. No human names can cling to her any more- they slip from her dusty shriveled flesh like a young girl's whimsies.”
― Tom Piccirilli, quote from A Choir of Ill Children
“Ghosts will forever put in appearances, as they should. Our illusions have muscle and meaning. The past returns at midnight, in the heart of our dreams, and the rains and the willows forever remind us of the sacrifices we’ve offered and those we have yet to make.”
― Tom Piccirilli, quote from A Choir of Ill Children
“It will finish badly when she dries out, I suppose, and probably end with madness, but almost everything does.”
― Tom Piccirilli, quote from A Choir of Ill Children
“He was a realist with too much fervor and not enough reverie. He always remained pragmatic in a place that had too much use for superstition. That’s enough to ruin any man.”
― Tom Piccirilli, quote from A Choir of Ill Children
“It seems that the people who question me the most are the ones who’ve committed the most outlandish or atrocious acts.”
― Tom Piccirilli, quote from A Choir of Ill Children
“He doesn’t hate you, Thomas, he admires you. And we’re often frightened and jealous of what we admire.”
― Tom Piccirilli, quote from A Choir of Ill Children
“Evil, as considered in these cases, is a lack of choice.”
― Tom Piccirilli, quote from A Choir of Ill Children
“why she did not trade Dodi to anyone but me, and why I didn’t dig screw worms out of anybody”
― Tom Piccirilli, quote from A Choir of Ill Children
“The past can come back in a lot of different ways, chile. It don’t get old and wind up buried like people do. It can die and be reborn. Sins take on shape and peck at your face.”
― Tom Piccirilli, quote from A Choir of Ill Children
“LOVE IS ONLY LUST DRESSED UP FOR CHURCH.”
― Tom Piccirilli, quote from A Choir of Ill Children
“They walk the wire across the chasms of their own souls, looking down into the great depths as, step by step, they cross to the distant side. On occasion they’ve learned something by the time they get there, but not always, and usually not what they expect.”
― Tom Piccirilli, quote from A Choir of Ill Children
“people make mistakes. If there was no such thing as forgiveness, there wouldn’t be any friendships left in the world.”
― Brent Hartinger, quote from Geography Club
“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”
― John Keats, quote from Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne
“P.S.” Kimmie continues, nodding toward my sculptor of Adam’s lips, the assignment was to sculpt something exotic, not erotic. Are you sure you weren’t so busy wishing me dead that you just didn’t hear right? Plus, if it was eroticism you were going for, how come there’s no tongue wagging out of his mouth?”
“And what’s exotic about your piece?”
“Seriously, it doesn’t get more exotic than leopard, particularly if that leopard is in the form of a swanky pair of kitten heels . . . but I thought I’d start out small.”
“Right,” I say, looking at her oblong ball of clay with what appears to be four legs, a golf-ball-sized head, and a long, skinny tail attached.
“And, from the looks of your sculpture,” she continues, adjusting the lace bandana in her pixie-cut dark hair, “I presume your hankering for a Ben Burger right about now. The question is, will that burger come with a pickle on the side or between the buns?”
“You’re so sick,” I say, failing to mention that my sculptor isn’t of Ben’s mouth at all.
“Seriously? You’re the one who’s wishing me dead whilst fantasizing about your boyfriend’s mouth. Tell me that doesn’t rank high up on the sik-o-meter.”
“I have to go,” I say, throwing a plastic tarp over my work board.
“Should I be worried?”
“About what?”
“Acting manic and chanting about death?”
“I didn’t chant.”
“Are you kidding? For a second there I thought you were singing the jingle to a commercial for roach killer: You deserve to die! You deserve to die! You deserve to die!”
― Laurie Faria Stolarz, quote from Deadly Little Games
“I'll give you the moon and the stars, Princess... and maybe a city to go along with it.”
― quote from Welcome to the Underworld
“Not everyone wears their scars on their skin.”
― Ilsa J. Bick, quote from Drowning Instinct
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