Craig Lancaster · 298 pages
Rating: (811 votes)
“Any fighter knows that regret that doesn't inform your future is wasted emotion. If you lose and dwell on the missed opportunity rather than the chances to come, you're finished.”
“I don’t feel sorry for myself. I’m not owed any of that. The opportunities were there, and I did not take them. I find it difficult to live with this sometimes.”
“Ernest Hemingway talked about how writing is opening up a vein and bleeding onto the page. You prepared to do that?”
“Hugo and I sat together in the chapel and didn’t say a word to each other. We’d already said them all, in better times and in better places.”
“nobody really gets what they deserve from this life, that it’s all a question of what you can take while you have the time.”
“The one thing Hugo did better than almost anyone else, the one constant for much of his life, was being taken away in a most ignominious way.”
“You can make yourself crazy, refiguring it all after the fact. You did what you thought was best at the time. You helped a friend. That’s what matters.”
“this much, too: never again will we keep our hearts waiting.”
“I cleared the air again. “Oh, I’m plenty stupid. But not on this. And I’m not cruel. Don’t let him fight again. Hell, you shouldn’t have let him fight tonight. I’m all for that. But it’s not going to kill you to let him go with the knowledge that nobody ever knocked him out cold. Besides, it isn’t me you have to convince anyway.” Squeaky ran the gym, ran the Tuesday night fights, but his daddy, Frank, was the boss. He knew this sure as I did.”
“At last Porch explodes. “I feel like I’m walking four dogs at the same time,” he says loudly. “One short-legged, one long-legged, one old and decrepit, and one just plain foolish!” He points at Orson. “You are not listening. Imelda, you are in love with your vibrato. Minna and Lucas, your minds are elsewhere. Up, up!” Porch waves his arms.”
“Honest, hopelessly romantic old-fashioned gentleman seeks lady friend who enjoys elegant dining, dancing and the slow bloom of affection.”
“I want one more moment, one more word, one more touch, and I'm not the only one. Everywhere I look there are hungry ghosts, and I am one of them.”
“He was watching her, leaning back in the chair with his arms crossed. His face was serious and kind; she saw he wasn’t making fun. He spoke softly, his head bent forward with concern. “A woman should learn to take a compliment gracefully,” he said.”
“money is a living moving force; leave it still, and it accumulates; expend it, and it gratifies every wish; save it, and that is best of all, and you hold in your hand a lever that will lift the world. I tell you that there is no height to which it cannot bring you, no gulf it will not bridge you.”
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