“You know, there is only one letter's difference between lonely and lovely," I told him once when he was down. "There is only one letter's difference between loner and loser," he retorted.”
― quote from Torture the Artist. Joey Goebel
“Ich weiß nicht, ob die verdummte Unterhaltung nach und nach dem kollektiven Intellekt unserer Nation geschadet hat oder ob die geistige Faulheit des Publikums zuerst da war und wir sie nur bedient haben.”
― quote from Torture the Artist. Joey Goebel
“I've taken the liberty of giving us a full moon. I've arranged for all stoplights to stay green. I've made some phone calls to make sure you keep smiling. I've reserved the space underneath our feet. I've gone all out for you, so why don't you go with me?”
― quote from Torture the Artist. Joey Goebel
“Sieh sie dir an", sagte Vincent. "Alle finden einfach zueinander. Sie kommen so mühelos zusammen. Warum passiert mir das nicht?”
― quote from Torture the Artist. Joey Goebel
“I thought about how in movies, usually action movies, a cheap way of getting the audience to invest in the plot is to endanger the life of a dog. There can be fifty men graphically terminated by machine-gun fire or an entire building full of workers destroyed, but no one will stand for a cute little dog being killed. And almost always, the dog's life is spared to the relief of the audience.”
― quote from Torture the Artist. Joey Goebel
“- Galima gauti saulės smūgį, bet mėnulio smūgio negausi.”
― quote from Torture the Artist. Joey Goebel
“Melinda Pratt rides city bus number twelve to her cello lesson, wearing her mother's jean jacket and only one sock. Hallo, world, says Minna. Minna often addresses the world, sometimes silently, sometimes out loud. Bus number twelve is her favorite place for watching, inside and out. The bus passes cars and bicycles and people walking dogs. It passes store windows, and every so often Minna sees her face reflection, two dark eyes in a face as pale as a winter dawn. There are fourteen people on the bus today. Minna stands up to count them. She likes to count people, telephone poles, hats, umbrellas, and, lately, earrings. One girl, sitting directly in front of Minna, has seven earrings, five in one ear. She has wisps of dyed green hair that lie like forsythia buds against her neck.
There are, Minna knows, a king, a past president of the United States, and a beauty queen on the bus. Minna can tell by looking. The king yawns and scratches his ear with his little finger. Scratches, not picks. The beauty queen sleeps, her mouth open, her hair the color of tomatoes not yet ripe. The past preside of the United States reads Teen Love and Body Builder's Annual.
Next to Minna, leaning against the seat, is her cello in its zippered canvas case. Next to her cello is her younger brother, McGrew, who is humming. McGrew always hums. Sometimes he hums sentences, though most often it comes out like singing. McGrew's teachers do not enjoy McGrew answering questions in hums or song. Neither does the school principal, Mr. Ripley. McGrew spends lots of time sitting on the bench outside Mr. Ripley's office, humming.
Today McGrew is humming the newspaper. First the headlines, then the sports section, then the comics. McGrew only laughs at the headlines.
Minna smiles at her brother. He is small and stocky and compact like a suitcase. Minna loves him. McGrew always tells the truth, even when he shouldn't. He is kind. And he lends Minna money from the coffee jar he keeps beneath his mattress.
Minna looks out the bus window and thinks about her life. Her one life. She likes artichokes and blue fingernail polish and Mozart played too fast. She loves baseball, and the month of March because no one else much likes March, and every shade of brown she has ever seen. But this is only one life. Someday, she knows, she will have another life. A better one. McGrew knows this, too. McGrew is ten years old. He knows nearly everything. He knows, for instance, that his older sister, Minna Pratt, age eleven, is sitting patiently next to her cello waiting to be a woman.”
― Patricia MacLachlan, quote from The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt
“Why one human being is attracted to another is one of the great mysteries of the world.”
― Claire Cook, quote from Must Love Dogs
“There's a certain language, a dying language, and I can't remember who speaks it or where in the world they are, but in that language the future is referred to as being behind us. It must be behind us, since we can see the past. We walk backwards, blind, into the future, only knowing where we've already been.”
― Andra Brynn, quote from Where I End and You Begin
“An ache stayed inside her. And a faint reverberating hum of something close to joy lived on the outer edges of her memory, some kind of longing that had been answered once and was simply not answered anymore.”
― Elizabeth Strout, quote from Amy and Isabelle
“I do not wish to preach, but perhaps, after all, this terrible misfortune may lead you to something better. Thank God, there is forgiveness for us all.”
― H. Rider Haggard, quote from Dawn
The Seed
Daily in His Presenc...
The Candle in the Wi...
Burned Alive
Blood Past
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