“You lose everything you love in the order in which you love it.”
― Amelia Gray, quote from Threats
“It was hard to admit that those days were over, but it was hard to admit that any days were over, that the days themselves didn't stretch like pulled taffy and sag to the floor.”
― Amelia Gray, quote from Threats
“It was clear that in a past life the detective had been a phone booth beside an empty highway.”
― Amelia Gray, quote from Threats
“In the kitchen he ate a pear. It occurred to him that, though he had eaten hundreds of pears in the past, if not thousands, this pear was different from every single one he had ever eaten, wholly unique, and, in fact, as he ate it, he was opening parts of the pear that had never been experienced by anyone, human or animal. When his maxillary incisors pierced the skin, which first protected the fruit as it had against the rain and sun and then yielded to the invasion, he was oxygenating particles that had never even been open to oxygen. The wet fruit and seeds had existed in darkness for their entire lives until he tore them out with his teeth.”
― Amelia Gray, quote from Threats
“No domestic dispute between Franny and David had inspired the removal of their wedding rings. She would take hers off at work when she was giving scalp massages. Once she thought she had lost the ring, but she found it in the treatment room on a candleholder David had made for her during a personal failure of a pottery class he had taken the year he lost his job. After she found her ring, she started leaving it at home.”
― Amelia Gray, quote from Threats
“He thought of the feeling of receiving oxygen from a mask and the calming sensation it brought, partly because of the concentrated gas but partly too because he could hear his muffled lungs expelling their product within the mask, and it reminded him that he was breathing, that the gas was flowing at all times but most importantly at that moment, a constant and essential truth. His lips and lungs and teeth were witness to the passage of breath.”
― Amelia Gray, quote from Threats
“Her body swelled and stilled. There would be a moment when she would breathe for the last time. An exhalation. There would be that moment, her prize of air, her still lake, her sweet boat floating away away, her body warping wood, swale and heavy, a sinking thing. He sat beside her, a helpless observer, his only power in witness, some bleak ability to watch and record the event in his own brain, which sent the order to his lungs to breathe with her while she still breathed, channels rising, sparks of interior electrical connection fading with the mind's fool hope that it could create some kind of measurable response, to provide some worth of warmth. Her body beside his, swell and still. He thought of her still. He thought of holding her absolutely still. He loved, he loved her. He loved her, still.”
― Amelia Gray, quote from Threats
“I hate to state the obvious,” said Chico, “but you vomited into that cup after I asked you a question.”
― Amelia Gray, quote from Threats
Amelia Gray
Born place: in Tucson, The United States
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“Goddamnit I've never been the "pretty friend..." She's the one who wears the perfect eyeliner, it never gathers like a crowd in her tear ducts to create a grapefruit-size ebony eye booger. The one who can wear a bodysuit, sit down in it, and not have rolls of fat cascading over her belt. The one who can eat a sandwich or hamburger and not wind up with lipstick on the bun or on her chin. The one who can actually eat in front of other people and not have food, like coleslaw, hanging from her lip or shooting out of her mouth, landing on the plates of other diners. She never spits when she talks. She sleeps with her mouth shut and never drools. She doesn't pick at her face. And she never, ever has to take a shit.”
― Laurie Notaro, quote from The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life
“We drove out to Oregon City where the streets are all named after presidents in the order they were elected, so you can't get lost if you are American and you know your presidents.”
― Jessica Grant, quote from Come, Thou Tortoise
“I began to get a feeling (...) of being the only sane man in a nut house. It doesn't make you feel superior but depressed and scared, because there is nobody you can contact.”
― William S. Burroughs, quote from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
“The cultural work done in the past by gods and epic sagas is now done by laundry-detergent commercials and comic-strip character”
― Roland Barthes, quote from Mythologies
“Our one employee came warily out of the back. He was always skittish with me, and if Lizzy wasn't around, h made a point of keeping his distance. I think he was expecting me to make a pass at him. He was seventeen, had stringy black hair,bad skin, and probably weighed a buck five soaked wet. I didn't have the heart to tell him he wasn't my type.”
― Marie Sexton, quote from Promises
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The Abstinence Teach...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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