Quotes from The End of Alice

“I'm nothing you can catch now. I am black powder, I am singe, I am the bomb that bursts the night.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

“There is a sky and trees, a high wire fence, a long road, and at the end of it you are there, waiting for me. So glad to see you, I say, misses you so much, thought about you ever day.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

“Silly bug, fly on the wall, our first fight and how quickly we are over it. Of course I don't hate you, dearest, beloved, most cherished, I owe you everything.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

“Tell me about your day, your routine, and what you did at the drugstore when the dumb little girl charged you five cents instead of five dollars. Did you speak up? Are you all so lily-white? The harder it gets to be safe and secure, to trust, to find love and understanding—the more you feel entitled, allowed, even encouraged, to cheat, to lie, to steal, and then later, even to kill. That you're just beginning to feel it now only means you have been lucky for too long.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

“Alice, I hand you her name gently, suggesting that if you hold it, carefully as I do, pressed close to the heart, you might at the end of this understand how confusing the beating of two such similar hearts can be and how one finally had to stop.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

“Today's the day. The clock is ticking. I have been summoned to speak. I go before the committee with a chance to exonerate myself, to extricate, or at least explain the debacle that has become my life.
A statement, a simple speech, a song and dance that will set them straight, an incandescent incantation, a charming presentation, a shoe of sorts, the show of shows, it's the only chance I've got. My appeal must be appealing, not entirely revealing, tucking the tendency to be argumentative, artfully augmenting my audacity with the acuity of my observation and the alarming accuracy of my action. What can I possibly say or do? Act normal.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

“The criminal element is contained – held under lock and key – and still it happens. How could it go one without me (us) – is that too narcissistic a mind? What I’m getting at is that, with so many of us locked up, you’d think it would stop. That it continues means that it is you and not me. Tell me about your day, your routine, and what you did at the drugstore when the dumb little girl charged you five cents instead of five dollars. Did you speak up? Are you all so lily-white? The harder it gets to be safe and secure, to trust, to find love and understanding – the more you feel entitled, allowed, even encouraged, to cheat, to lie, to steal, and then later, even to kill. That you are just beginning to feel it now only means you have been lucky for too long.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

“To go there with her and explain in greatest detail the goings-on, to suggest to her that perhaps the sickness she experiences, the nauseating turn, is her own internal structure cramped by the rise of a desire heretofore unknown. I would also suggest that the impulse to 'lose one's lunch,' to spill such rich and fine fare as the 3 or 4 peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches consumed under the elm by the canoe pond only an hour before, is not so much a mark of aversion as a pronouncement of attraction, the making room for greater possibility.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

“A man of the mouth, formerly the most oral of surgeons, Henry had the habit of giving his lady patients laughing gas, putting them out, then fiercely fucking them, while tugging on their wisdom teeth. His getting caught was a slip of the tongue, so to speak. While he was buried deep in a muff, some sharp thing slipped, and his prize patient, Mrs Mavis Gilette, woke to find a harpoon hole in her cheek and her lost licker languishing on the floor.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

“Even though I thought I wouldn't - could never - I do enjoy looking at him. It is like seeing one's self, like seeing one's self with a certain sense of remove.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

“when we fuck-and we do fuck,frequently-there is some-thing about her skin,about the way we fit into each other, that it is as if I'm inside out, touching myself.there is something between us not made on Earth.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

“I want to do with her as one would a proper lover, fuck her ferociously,working up an appetite for a beasts breakfast and then returning to bed, to do it again, finally rousing at two or three,to snack, feeding each other in bed like baby birds still in the nest, fucking again, then sleeping until supper with the comfort of newfound familiarity.”
― A.M. Homes, quote from The End of Alice

About the author

Popular quotes

“Author's Note: I wanted to read the book that would begin to answer some of my questions, because I felt I couldn't write it... I also doubted my ability to handle monsoon and slum conditions after years of lousy health. I made the decision to try in the course of an absurdly long night at home alone in Washington, D.C. Tripping over an unabridged dictionary, I found myself on the floor with a punctured lung and three broken ribs in a spreading pool of Diet Dr Pepper, unable to slither to a phone. In the hours that passed, I arrived at a certain clarity. Having proved myself ill-suited to safe cohabitation with an unabridged dictionary, I had little to lose by pursuing my interests in another quarter-- a place beyond my so-called expertise, where the risk of failure would be great but the interactions somewhat more meaningful.”
― Katherine Boo, quote from Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

“I'm glad you escaped, Kyra," Fred said, looking serious again. "And that I found you."
"Me too," Kyra said, glancing up at him. "It wouldn't have been much of a life trying to live in the dumbwaiter."
Fred leaned down and kissed Kyra full on the lips.
Kyra pulled away. "How do you know I'm interested in you? Just because you've decided I'm worth hanging around for doesn't mean I feel the same way."
Fred cocked his head at her. "Really?"
"Oh, okay," Kyra said.
Then she kissed him back.”
― Bridget Zinn, quote from Poison

“now I want something better than vengeance, and something almost as hard to get.” He told it to the young woman in the second row: “I want remembrance.” He told it to all of them: “Remembrance. It’s hard to get because life goes on; every year we have new horrors—a Vietnam, terrorist activities in the Middle East and Ireland, assassinations”—(ninety-four sixty-five-year-old men?)—“and every year,” he drove himself on, “the horror of horrors, the Holocaust, becomes farther away, a little less horrible. But philosophers have warned us: if we forget the past, we are doomed to repeat it.”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil

“I am messaging you to say that I love you, and that you're completely wrong about me thinking you're stupid. I always thought you could teach me things. I was always waiting. You're not like the others. You say things that no one expects you to. You think you're stupid. You want to be stupid. But you're someone people could learn from.”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed

“When the sun sets like fire,
I will think of you,
when the moon casts its light,
I'll remember, too,
if a soft rain falls gently,
I'll stand in this place,
recalling the last time,
I saw your kind face.
Good fortune go with you,
to your journey's end,
let the waters run calmly,
for you, my dear friend.”
― Brian Jacques, quote from Loamhedge

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About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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