The Wettest County in the World

The constant assertion of masculinity is always the most obvious tell of a fake. You do not constantly assert what you know you have.

It amazed Forrest that so many men seemed to wake up in the morning needing some kind of beating or another, men saying and doing fantastic things for the sake of getting another man to smash his face.

Without that fear, we are all as good as dead.

The only way through is to bury it deep in your gut and let the hot juices work on it for a while. Soon enough you forget whatever it was that pained you to begin with.

A man who likes to get hit is the one to watch out for.

Sure,but that don't mean I've got to go far away.On your own has nothing to do with distance.

Some folks, he said, seem to want to seek out the things that destroy them. Called an achimist, a fancy word, but a true one.

I’ll tell you what, Howard said, you only need to know one thing. Something ol’ Forrest knows. That’s you gotta hit first, hit with everythin’ you got, and then keep hittin’ until the man is down, and then you hit him some more. Jack nodded. Many men, Howard said, like the idea of fightin’ but very few likes to get hit. You can make a man wanna quit real quick with that first shot. A good straight left into the nose bone and most will let it be. A man who likes to get hit is the one to watch out for.

...he had focused so long on the precision of the word, the utterance that was most unfettered by artful manipulation, that the thing had become mere style.

They were married the year before, and during his travels he wrote her long, passionate letters that shocked himself and that seemed to contain the vitality that he usually was able to produce only in his fiction. In fact the letters, the words and phrases, the sentiments and ideas, seemed to come from some shadowy character, not fully formed, that lay deep inside him.

The next hurt is always coming, always close by, Forrest had said, lying in the hospital. Jack stood by the bed and stared at the ragged stitching under his brother's chin, the black, bristling threads against his white-blue neck. The only way through is to bury it deep in your gut and let the hot juices work on it for a while. Soon enough you forget whatever it was that pained you to begin with.

Looking at his brother then Jack realized that he never considered Howard much of a sentient being, never considerered that he ever had a real though or plan about anything. He had always though of him as some kind of machine or animal, reacting to the world in an instinctual manner. This thought alarmed and embarrassed him.