Dolores Claiborne

Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman's got to hold on to.

Sometimes you have to be a high riding bitch to survive, sometimes, being a bitch is all a woman has to hang on to.

I'm not making an enemy; I'm keepin' one.

And sometimes before I went to sleep I'd think: This is how, this is how you pay off bein' a bitch. And it ain't no use sayin' if you haven't been a bitch you wouldn't have had to pay. Because sometimes the world makes you be a bitch.When it's all doom and dark outside and only you inside to first make a light and then tend it, you have to be a bitch.

He was a coward at heart, you see, although I never said the word out loud to him —not then and not ever. Doing that's about the most dangerous thing a person can do, I think, because a coward is more afraid of being discovered than he is of anything else, even dying.

When it's all doom and dark outside and only you inside to first make a light then tend it, you have to be a bitch.

I understood something else, too - that one kiss didn't change a thing. Anyone can give a kiss, after all; a kiss was how Judas Iscariot showed the Romans which one was Jesus.

There ain't no power in heaven or on earth that can stop people from thinkin the worst when they want to.

In those days I still believed the love of a man for a woman and a woman for a man was stronger than the love of drinkin and hell-raisin—that love would eventually rise to the top like cream in a bottle of milk. I learned better over the next ten years. The world’s a sorry schoolroom sometimes, ain’t it?

Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.

In the fifties... when they had their summer parties - there were always different colored lanterns on the lawn... and I get the funniest chill. In the end the bright colors always go out of life, have you noticed that? In the end, things always look gray, like a dress that's been washed too many times.

and the rain went rollin down the windowpanes, and the shadows wiggled n' squiggled on her check and forehead like black veins.

...most of what bein human's about is making choices and payin the bills when they come due. Some of the choices are pretty goddam nasty, but that don't give a person leave to just walk away from em... In a case like that, you just have to make the best choice you can n then pay the price.

A person can always find something to be grateful for no matter how dark it gets.

There's no way you can prepare for a broken heart.

We was used to each other in the way I s'pose two old bats can get used to hangin upside-down next to each other in the same cave, even though they're a long way from what you'd call the best of friends.

Time's a reach, too, you know, just like the one that lies between the islands and the mainland, but the only ferry that can cross it is memory, and that's like a ghost-ship—if you want it to disappear, after awhile it will.

...two bitches livin on a little chunk of rock...

One way or another, all the bridges between that time n this one have been burned. Time's a reach, too, you know, just like the one that lies between the islands and the mainland, but the only ferry that can cross it is memory, and that's like a ghost-ship - if you want it to disappear, after awhile it will.

That ain’t Chanel Number Five I smell comin from the direction of your butt, is it?

I paid a higher price than anyone will ever know, but I lived with the bargain I made just the same. I did more than that. When the dust bunnies and the dreams of what could have been were all I had left, I took the dreams and made them my own. The dust bunnies? Well, they might have gotten me in the end, but I lived with them for a lot of years before they did. Now you've got a bunch of your own to deal with, but if you've lost the guts you had on the day when you told me that firing the Jolander girl was a boogery thing to do, go on. Go on and jump. Because without your guts, Dolores Claiborne, you're just another stupid old woman.

In the end, it’s the bitches of the world who abide . . . and as for the dust bunnies: frig ya!

A real drunk is only int’rested in two things: puttin paid to the jug in the hand, and huntin for the one still in the bush.

Your cunt's even worse. Christ, you ain't thirty-five yet and fuckin you's like fuckin a mudpuddle.

...the love a natural mother feels for her children. That's the strongest love there is in this world, and it's the deadliest. There's no bitch on earth like a mother frightened for her kids.

although sometimes, when I’m talkin to Selena on the phone and hear her slur her words, I wonder if there’s any escape for any of us from the pain n the sorrow of our lives.

When the dust bunnies and the dreams of what could have been were all I had left, I took the dreams and made them my own.