“And then I saw Niko. He had sunk down to his knees and had his face in his hands.
I went over to him.
"You did it," I said. "You saved us."
"Yeah," he moaned, "but I lost her.”
― Emmy Laybourne, quote from Sky on Fire
“Monopoly belonged to me and Alex. It was our game and they would never understand. There were strategies and traditions and they would never get all its complexities.
I didn't want them to play it.
I strode to the Toy Department for another divider, thinking that I would never play Monopoly with anyone besides Alex, ever. Ever, ever, ever, ever.
It was possible I was behaving somewhat like a child.”
― Emmy Laybourne, quote from Sky on Fire
“We were a good team. I was glad we had decided to work on being friends. She was holding up her end of the bargain and I was trying my best not to worship her.”
― Emmy Laybourne, quote from Sky on Fire
“Niko started sobbing. There is no other word for it.
He just crumpled down over the legs of the dead soldier and sobbed.
I didn't know what to do. I sat down.
Sahalia went over and kind of rubbed Niko's back.
Batiste kept screaming for Josie.
Max was whimpering. He was in pain.
Ulysses climbed down from the tree and went and got Max's boot from where it got stuck under the root, and for a long while, that's all the movement there was.
Just fat Ulysses, trying to help his friend get his boot on.”
― Emmy Laybourne, quote from Sky on Fire
“Honey, I don't understand that story. What does it mean?"
"It means stick with the dog you know, Auntie Jean", Max told her. "Stick with the dog you know.”
― Emmy Laybourne, quote from Sky on Fire
“I guess I could go and get a bunch of knives from the Kitchen aisles and throw them at the intruders. So lame. I wanted to wring my own neck for being so lame.”
― Emmy Laybourne, quote from Sky on Fire
“He swaggered over to Jake himself.”
― Emmy Laybourne, quote from Sky on Fire
Emmy Laybourne
Born place: in Somerville, NJ, The United States
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“Put. That coffee. Down. Coffee's for closers only.”
― David Mamet, quote from Glengarry Glen Ross
“...it's better to wake up amid the pangs of desire than amid those of remorse.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes
First, her tippet made of tulle,
easily lifted off her shoulders and laid
on the back of a wooden chair.
And her bonnet,
the bow undone with a light forward pull.
Then the long white dress, a more
complicated matter with mother-of-pearl
buttons down the back,
so tiny and numerous that it takes forever
before my hands can part the fabric,
like a swimmer’s dividing water,
and slip inside.
You will want to know
that she was standing
by an open window in an upstairs bedroom,
motionless, a little wide-eyed,
looking out at the orchard below,
the white dress puddled at her feet
on the wide-board, hardwood floor.
The complexity of women’s undergarments
in nineteenth-century America
is not to be waved off,
and I proceeded like a polar explorer
through clips, clasps, and moorings,
catches, straps, and whalebone stays,
sailing toward the iceberg of her nakedness.
Later, I wrote in a notebook
it was like riding a swan into the night,
but, of course, I cannot tell you everything—
the way she closed her eyes to the orchard,
how her hair tumbled free of its pins,
how there were sudden dashes
whenever we spoke.
What I can tell you is
it was terribly quiet in Amherst
that Sabbath afternoon,
nothing but a carriage passing the house,
a fly buzzing in a windowpane.
So I could plainly hear her inhale
when I undid the very top
hook-and-eye fastener of her corset
and I could hear her sigh when finally it was unloosed,
the way some readers sigh when they realize
that Hope has feathers,
that Reason is a plank,
that Life is a loaded gun
that looks right at you with a yellow eye.”
― Billy Collins, quote from Picnic, Lightning
“I quickly learned that a book carefully arranged before your face was a bulletproof shield, an asbestos wall, a cloak of invisibility. I learned to take refuge behind books, to become, as my mother and father called me, 'the absentminded professor-' They screamed at me, but I couldn't hear. I was reading. I was writing. I was safe.”
― Erica Jong, quote from Fear of Flying
“Good grief, he’d fallen into his death sleep with a hard-on. Was it possible for a stiff to be that stiff?”
― Kerrelyn Sparks, quote from All I Want for Christmas is a Vampire
The Feynman Lectures...
Warrior of the Light
The Will
Reaper's Property
Precious Bane
The Tibetan Book of...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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