Billy O'Connor · 310 pages
Rating: (28 votes)
“I tried to drown my demons with whiskey, but I found out real devils can swim.”
― Billy O'Connor, quote from Confessions of a Bronx Bookie
“I skipped two short steps and walloped the back of his head with an energy-charged swing of the pipe. The street collided with his jaw.”
― Billy O'Connor, quote from Confessions of a Bronx Bookie
“The longer the wars, the younger the men who must finish them.”
― Billy O'Connor, quote from Confessions of a Bronx Bookie
“In Nam, the jungle's heat was heavy, and like a spoiled overweight child, it insisted on being carried everywhere.”
― Billy O'Connor, quote from Confessions of a Bronx Bookie
“I crashed the pipe murderously down onto his mouth and heard his upper teeth shatter at the gums.”
― Billy O'Connor, quote from Confessions of a Bronx Bookie
“The silence became palpable and merciless in its depths. The only sound came from my car’s radio. The Temptations towed me to tears.”
― Billy O'Connor, quote from Confessions of a Bronx Bookie
“The guys I owed were serious people. I was so busy raising cash; I barely had time to ignore my creditors.”
― Billy O'Connor, quote from Confessions of a Bronx Bookie
“My old man left Ireland's stone, green fields to migrate to the glass, concrete canyons of New York in 1950.”
― Billy O'Connor, quote from Confessions of a Bronx Bookie
“Almost as evil as the stench was the silence. Senex, however poorly he had ended his rule, had always remembered the canonical crows. He sang them, to be sure, in a disoriented manner; but he did sing them, keeping his animals that way, banding them, unifying them.
But Cockatrice never crowed the canon. So under him the day lost its meaning and its direction, and the animals lost any sense of time or purpose. Their land became strange to them. A terrible feeling of danger entered their souls, of things undone, of treasures unprotected. They were tired all the day long, and at night they did not sleep. And it was a most pitiful sight to see, how they all went about with hunched shoulders, heads tucked in, limping here and there as if they were forever walking into an ill wind, and flinching at every sound as if the wind carried arrows.”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow
“To be a person of relative power and privilege viewing a person of less power and privilege is a political act. The gaze of the powerful is neither neutral nor benign; misrecognition hinders the ability of black people to act as citizens. Indeed, hooks asserts, challenging white people’s assumptions about what they see when they view black people is a critical step toward liberation and equality.21”
― Melissa V. Harris-Perry, quote from Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America
“Robert Phelps, a biographer of Colette, said about watching, 'Along with love and work, this is the third great salvation. For whenever someone is seriously watching, a form of lost innocence is restored. It will not last, but during those minutes his self-consciousness is relieved.' Noticing keeps you alive.”
― Molly Peacock, quote from The Paper Garden: Mrs. Delany Begins Her Life's Work at 72
“Life must not be squandered. A person got from life what he put ino it.”
― LaVyrle Spencer, quote from The Endearment
“He raised his hand to brush a stray hair from her face. Instead of dropping his hand, he slid it behind her neck and drew her closer. His earthy pine scent enveloped her. When his lips touched hers, she lost any hope of control.”
― Lia Davis, quote from Winter Eve
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