“I felt I was drawing close to that age, that place in life, where you realize one day what you'd told yourself was a Zen detachment turns out to be naked fear. You'd had one serious love relationship in your life and it had ended in tragedy, and the tragedy had broken something inside you. But instead of trying to repair the broken place, or at least really stop and look at it, you skated and joked. You had friends, you were a decent citizen. You hurt no one. And your life was somehow just about half of what it could be.”
― Roland Merullo, quote from A Little Love Story
“Families are like countries. They have their own language and jokes and secrets and assumptions about the right and wrong ways of doing things, and some of that always shows in the children, the way something of
Germany or Australia always shows in a German or an Australian, no matter where they go. Outsiders like it or they don't, they feel at home there or they don't. It's like the taste of cilantro.
”
― Roland Merullo, quote from A Little Love Story
“I decided that if I was worth anything as a person, I ought to be able to let her be with what it was she had to be with then: not urge her to fight it if she was tired of fighting, not ply her with hope, not make her think about who might be upset or worried, not ask anything of her, nothing, just be alive with her while she was still alive.”
― Roland Merullo, quote from A Little Love Story
“I like that kind of thing. I like warmth and uncalled-for kindness, the small unnoticed generosities that speckle the meanness of the world.”
― Roland Merullo, quote from A Little Love Story
“I miss women,” he went on. “I miss that kind of intimacy. But I think whatever people do; they do in search of pleasure. Or trying to get rid of pain or fear, which is the same thing, basically. Everything, everything is really about that. Everything is about bringing your mind to a place where it’s at peace”
― Roland Merullo, quote from A Little Love Story
“My father could out-weather anybody. Like people anywhere, there were times when it was the only topic where people here felt comfortably expressive, and my father could go on earnestly, seemingly forever. When the current weather was exhausted, there was all the weather that had occurred in recorded history, weather lived through or witnessed by a relative, or even heard about on the news. Catastrophic weather of all types. And when that was done, there was all the weather that might possibly occur in the future. I'd even heard him speculate about weather in the afterlife.”
― Louise Erdrich, quote from The Round House
“i’ll tell you a tale of Vampirates,
a tale as old as true.
Yea, I’ll sing you a song of an ancient ship,
that sails the ocean blue...
That haunts the ocean blue.
the Vampirate ship has tattered sails,
that flap like wings in flight.
They say that the Captain, he wears a veil,
so as to curtail your fright.
At his death pale skin,
and his lifeless eyes,
and his teeth sharp as night.
Oh, they say that the Captain, he wears a veil,
and his eyes never see the light.
you better be good child- good as gold.
As good as good can be.
Else I’ll tell you to the in to the vampirates,
and wave you out to sea.
Yes, you’d better be good child- good as gold,
because- lookཀ can you see?,
There’s a dark ship in the harbor tonight.
And there’s room in the hold for thee.
(Plenty of room for thee.)
Well if pirates are bad.
And vampires are worse.
Then I pray, that as long as I be,
that though I sing of Vampirates,
I never one shall I see.
Yea, if Pirates are danger,
and Vampirates are death,
I’ll extend my prayer for thee-
that thine eyes never see a Vampirate...
...and they never lay a hand on thee.”
― Justin Somper, quote from Demons of the Ocean
“Emperor Joseph II: My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.
Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?”
― Peter Shaffer, quote from Amadeus
“We glide and I feel as if I'm floating.”
― Thanhha Lai, quote from Inside Out & Back Again
“There is nowhere to go but on. Still, part of her longs to go back for one instant—not to change anything, not even to speak to Lydia, not to tell her anything at all. Just to open the door and see her daughter there, asleep, one more time, and know all was well.”
― Celeste Ng, quote from Everything I Never Told You
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