“See, she goes places when she reads. I know all about that. When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.”
“Sidda can't help herself. She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves the black letters marching across the white pages...”
“Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to. This is something that I've struggled with my whole life long.”
“Listen to me, Siddalee, and listen good: There is no excuse to let your looks go, no matter how poor you are. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, but honey let me tell you, ugliness will get you nowhere.”
“Sometimes I wonder if any of us are cut out for the lives we lead.”
“Zip it kiddo. Don't ever admit you know a thing about cooking or it'll be used against you later in life.”
“There is the truth of history, and there is the truth of what a person remembers. As {she} sat at the edge of {the lake}, memory blossoms floated unbounded, as though breathed, no words spoken. Like birds that fly across national borders, between countries at war at each other.”
“Books are living things with blood and bones, and it breaks our heart when people dissect them.”
“You cannot escape from life. Life is not a book. You can't just set it down on the coffee table and walk away from it when it gets boring or you get tired.”
“Sidda can't help herself, She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves those black letters marching across the white pages.”
“Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to.”
“When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.”
“hear anything about my lessons. When I try to show her Charlene’s numbers from The Pajama”
“to let anything connected with Charlene get criticized, so I said, Mama, you’re just jealous because you can’t dance like Charlene. Mama said, Shut your filthy mouth. Then I said, Shut your filthy mouth.”
“this architect who everyone misunderstands. I completely forget to ask what she and Charlene are going to laugh about. One evening Mama takes Baylor and Little Shep and Lulu and me to Fred’s Hamburger Drive-In where we eat at least”
“supposed to walk off my block, Sherry says, like a real whiny-baby.”
“want to be grown-up and drive my own convertible and live in a different town where nobody knows Mama or Daddy.”
“hope they remember that when they get older. When they count up the things I did and didn’t do. I never gave the drinking a second”
“far as I knew. Never thought one way or the other when Mama used to take her “naps” in the middle of Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner. Never said to myself, Mama’s not napping, she’s passed-out drunk. Never even questioned”
“sadness usually does, as soon as I sat down and began to listen. The small press had a correspondingly”
“Siddalee looked at me like: You liar, Daddy, you big liar. I don’t know why I’m thinking”
“this dream where I just tell it all, and then this special-made vacuum cleaner comes and sucks all the crap out of my lungs. Stops me from drowning. Clean oxygen reaches deep in my chest like it hasn’t for so goddamn long. In the dream I tell it all, and I breathe like a baby. I forget to worry about the next breath, just trust it’s gonna come. Siddalee asks too many questions. I don’t know where the child gets those thoughts. She pins me to the wall with all the stuff she asks. Sometimes I wish she’d lose her voice. And sometimes I want to go and sit in front of her and ask her questions. I’d like to say: What do you want me to do? Tell me what to do—step by step—to get out of the mess we’re in here in this house. But I know it’s foolishness”
“thinking: I don’t want my little girl to come out blind or gouged up. I’m not cheap, I’m scared. It’s the story of my life: not stingy, just a goddamn coward.”
“I was near, even though she couldn’t see me. But then I’m always expecting too much from the girl, wanting her to know things she can’t”
“Well, I could have predicted that something like this was going to happen. You can’t go anywhere with Mama without things getting nuts. If it’s going along too smooth she will invent something just to stir things up. Sometimes we’ll be downtown”
“social structure of Troop 55. There are”
“Edythe, I finally say, Why don’t you go on back to your bunk and eat your boogers for a midnight snack like you always do at home? Well, that comment really sends my friends, and I’m a big hit. But then I see Edythe’s face. It’s like something has fallen on it and crumpled it in. Somehow she looks so familiar that I can feel her bones inside my own body. And I start to feel sort of sick. She turns and walks away and”
“sits on the bedspread between her and Necie. I can smell that nail polish in the clean cool air of the woods. The minute Mama opens her mouth I realize she’s had at least four drinks. Her voice is loose and deep and content and amused, and she says: Edythe, don’t you ever”
“Honestly, Edythe, Mama says, like she’s going to give her the most important advice in the world, If you continue acting this way, you will be unpopular for the rest of your life. I wish I could go someplace far away”
“The bare branches were silvered with frost. The berries of the holly tree looked white with rime. Old Marie said that all holly berries had once been white, but that the crown of thorns had been made of holly, and the berries had turned red when touched with Jesus's blood. She had a story to explain everything, Old Marie.”
“نحن في الواقع لا نتخذ القرارات، وإنما القرارات هي التي تتخذنا”
“But before you forget, while you sit stagnant in your little corner of the board, there is one piece that obeys almost no rules and has her own commands. Utter freedom is the way of the queen. She is your most powerful piece, your very best ally, the ruination of your enemy—but only if you utilize her properly, my king. Only if you are willing to do what it takes to plumb the debts of her power to aid you to victory. Just try to win without her, and you'll see you are doomed to failure.”
“The Demon curled its lips back, revealing a double row of needle-sharp teeth.
I considered changing my chosen course of action; I considered fainting.”
“Când ești bătrân, iubești mai mult și suferi mai puțin.”
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