The Last House on Needless Street

Anyway the trick to life is, if you don’t like what is happening, go back to sleep until it stops.

The young feel pain intensely, I think, because they don’t know yet how deep it can go.

Everything in life is a rehearsal for loss. Only the smart people know it.

How many times can someone bend before they break forever? You have to take care, dealing with broken things; sometimes they give way, and break others in their turn.

I judge people two ways—on how they treat animals, and on what they like to eat. If their favorite food is some kind of salad, they are definitely a bad person. Anything with cheese, they are probably OK.

I’ll tell you a secret, kitten. Everyone feels like that sometimes. Sometimes things get bad, and you can’t see a future ahead. It’s all cloudy, like the sky on a rainy day. But life moves very fast. Things never stay the same forever, even the bad things. The clouds will blow away. They always do, I promise.

I don’t recall names but I have my ways of judging and remembering people. The first one is: would they be kind to my cat?

I like this kind of place, where you’re in between one thing and another. Hallways, waiting rooms, lobbies and so on; rooms where nothing is actually supposed to happen. It relieves a lot of pressure and lets me think.

Thoughts are a door that the dead walk through.

The first thing I hate is called a Russian doll. It holds a smaller version of itself inside it, and another inside that and so on. How awful. They are prisoners. I imagine them all screaming in the dark, unable to move or speak. The doll’s face is broad and blankly smiling. It looks so happy to be holding its children captive.

There’s a monster inside each of us,’ he says. 'If you let yours out, Ted, it might not eat you.

If one thing comes to light, others follow. They are like that, secrets, they move in flocks like birds.

I had always felt that there was something wrong with me. I was like one of the tracings I did on her baking paper, a bad one, where the comic book underneath slipped; the lines slewed across the page, and the picture became a monstrous version of itself.

Bad things are happening. It seems best to sleep until they stop.

People who have lived together for many generations share a special kind of madness.

If there's anything better than a cat on the bed, I don't know about it.

I would also investigate the type and quality of naps there are, because there are so many different kinds. Short and deep--I call that kind "the wishing well." The very light doze, kind of half under, which can go on for hours--I call those "skateboards." The sort you have in front of the TV when a good show is playing (NOT this show) and you kind of take in the plot but are also asleep--those are called "whisperers.

Children are like a chain around your heart or neck, and they pull you in every direction.

The body’s reactions to fear are so similar to that of love.

Truth has weight. It leaves footprints in your mind.

A relationship is a very delicate business. You have to work at it every day.

I wanted a friend to look after us. The weird thing is, now that I have one, all I want to do is look after him.

I ate a pickle and now I feel a lot better

I think about the round world, which if you travel far enough, only brings you back to the same place.

So her mind fragmented. It formed a new personality to deal with the trauma. It’s rather beautiful. An intelligent child’s elegant solution to suffering.

When she turns out the light the dark is rich and complete. The house breathes about her like a person, boards groaning, releasing the stored heat of the day. Stars peer through the window.

Breaking me, then mending me, over and over—that was my mother.

The gods are closer than you would think. They live among the trees, behind a skin so thin you could scratch it open with a fingernail.

Death deserves a witness. Evan a bird should have that.

The mind is clever. It knows how to tell you something that you can accept, when life gets too hard.