“An interesting thing happened today,” she said, giving me just enough time to get the word “hi” out of my mouth. “I opened the front door and there was a man on my doorstep. A big man. A very big, very black man.”
“Rachel —”
“You said it would be discreet. His T–shirt had the words ‘Klan Killer’ written on the front.”
“I —”
“And do you know what he said?”
I waited.
“He handed me a note from Louis and told me he was lactose intolerant. That was it. Note. Lactose intolerant. Nothing else. He’s coming to the reading with me. It was all I could do to get him to change his T–shirt. The new one reads ‘Black Death.’ I’m going to tell people it’s a rap band. Do you think it’s a rap band?”
I figured it was probably his occupation, but I didn’t say that. Instead, I said the only thing I could think of to say.
“Maybe you’d better buy some soy milk.”
She hung up without saying good–bye.”
― John Connolly, quote from The White Road
“You still carrying an arsenal in the trunk of your car?”
“Why, you need something?”
“No, but if your car is hit by lightning I’ll know where my lawn went.”
― John Connolly, quote from The White Road
“So what you gonna do?”
“Push a stick into the beehive and rustle up some bees. The Larousses are hosting a party today. I think we should avail ourselves of their hospitality.”
“We got an invite?”
“Has not having one ever stopped us before?”
“No, but sometimes I just like to be invited to shit, you know what I’m sayin’, instead of havin’ to bust in, get threatened, irritate the nice white folks, put the fear of the black man on them.”
He paused, seemed to think for a while about what he had just said, then brightened.
“Sounds good, doesn’t it?” I said.
“Real good,” he agreed.”
― John Connolly, quote from The White Road
“I have found in the past that what passes for coincidence is usually life’s way of telling you that you’re not paying enough attention.”
― John Connolly, quote from The White Road
“THE AFRO-AMERICAN HAS BEEN HEIR TO THE MYTHS THAT IT IS BETTER TO BE POOR THAN RICH, LOWER-CLASS RATHER THAN MIDDLE OR UPPER, EASYGOING RATHER THAN INDUSTRIOUS, EXTRAVAGANT RATHER THAN THRIFTY AND ATHLETIC RATHER THAN ACADEMIC.”
― John Connolly, quote from The White Road
“So, how we doin'?"
"Same as usual: dead people, a mystery, more dead people."
"Who we lost?"
"The boy. His guardians. Maybe Elliot Norton."
"Shit, don't sound like we got anybody left. Anyone hires you better leave you your fee in their will.”
― John Connolly, quote from The White Road
“For instance, a crew of pirates are driven by a storm they know not whither; at length a boy discovers land from the topmast; they go on shore to rob and plunder, they see a harmless people, are entertained with kindness; they give the country a new name; they take formal possession of it for their king; they set up a rotten plank, or a stone, for a memorial; they murder two or three dozen of the natives, bring away a couple more, by force, for a sample; return home, and get their pardon. Here commences a new dominion acquired with a title by divine right. Ships are sent with the first opportunity; the natives driven out or destroyed; their princes tortured to discover their gold; a free license given to all acts of inhumanity and lust, the earth reeking with the blood of its inhabitants: and this execrable crew of butchers, employed in so pious an expedition, is a modern colony, sent to convert and civilize an idolatrous and barbarous people!”
― Jonathan Swift, quote from Gulliver's Travels
“The weak fall, but the strong will remain and never go under!”
― Anne Frank, quote from The Diary of a Young Girl
“How am I supposed to decide this? How can I possibly stay without mom and dad? How can I leave without Teddy? Or Adam? This is too much. I don’t even understand how it all works, why I’m here in the state that I’m in or how to get out of it if I wanted to. If I were to say, I want to wake up, would I wake up right now? I’ve already tried snapping my heels to find Teddy and tried to beam myself to Hawaii, and that didn’t work. This seems a whole lot more complicated.
But in spite of that, I believe it’s true. I hear the nurse’s words again. I am running the show. Everyone’s waiting on me.
I decide. I know this now.
And this terrifies me more than anything else that has happened today.”
― Gayle Forman, quote from If I Stay
“People say children from broken homes have it hard, but the children of charmed marriages have their own particular challenges.”
― Gillian Flynn, quote from Gone Girl
“We had a good run, and now it’s over; what’s wrong with that?”
― Garth Stein, quote from The Art of Racing in the Rain
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