Allan Gurganus · 736 pages
Rating: (5.4K votes)
“Beware of using up your last forty years in being the curator of your first fifty.”
“Truth always leaves a pleasure asking questions.”
“How soon, sugar, the terrible becomes routine. We've all got this dangerous built-in talent: for turning horrors into errands. You hear folks wonder how the Germans could have done it? I believe part of the answer is: They made extermination be a nine-to-five activity. You know, salaries? Lunch breaks? And the staff came and did their job and went home and ate supper and slept and woke and came back and did their job and went home and ate their supper and slept and woke and came back and did their job. --That's partly how you get anything done, especially a chore what's dreadful, dreadful. -- Honey? we've all got to be real careful of what we can get used to.”
“(Spring is the earth forgiving itself.)”
“I started thinking of my absentee diamond. My thumb and little finger kept reaching for their pet and sidekick.”
“Seemed our house stirred up troubles enough to keep a radio soap show in daily episodes forever.”
“Once you harden, the arteries do.”
“All their lives they’ve said how Folks that don’t Work should Starve. Now they can’t work but they ain’t ready for what they been wishing on the shiftless of all races.”
“Fifteen, that’s the age when the only world event that counts is whatever mood you’re in that day.”
“Which basically showed how amazing the human mind was; how you could care about someone but want to slit his or her throat at the same time.”
“You dog!” she said, so loud that half the crowded tavern turned to watch. “A few days past the walls of the inner keep and you think your pizzle has turned to solid silver? At least when Nevin Hewney falls asleep on top of a girl, drooling and farting and limp as custard, he doesn’t pretend he’s done her a favor.”
“Tales within tales. Dreams within dreams. Pattern on pattern and path beyond path. For such short-lived folks, the human kind seem determined to make things as complicated as possible for themselves.”
“Not me, of course, as I am now officially a spinster librarian and must stay home with my cat and drink tea.”
“With you,love is a trophy that comes in different sizes, and you're always trying to get the biggest one out there. Mine wasn't the biggest, or the shiniest. For me, love is a ribbon. It doesn't matter what color or size it is, as long as I can pin it to my heart”
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