Kevin Wilson · 224 pages
Rating: (1.9K votes)
“Don't you see? The things we once loved do not change, only our belief in them... You are left with the only things that any of us have in the end. The things we keep inside of ourselves, that grow out of us, that tell us who we are.”
― Kevin Wilson, quote from Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories
“She's got a way of making a man feel guilty for certain things he'd never feel bad about on his own, like watching someone shoot himself in the face.”
― Kevin Wilson, quote from Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories
“She is prettier than her picture had prepared me for, blond curls, big blue eyes, like a fake child that someone would make in order to convince people to have children.”
― Kevin Wilson, quote from Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories
“Up to this point, all I knew were beaten paths, tattooed with footprints, and I had come to the understanding that they were not much fun to travel because so many people were waiting for you at the end, wondering what took you so long.”
― Kevin Wilson, quote from Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories
“The most likely victim of spontaneous human combustion is a solitary woman, 75 percent of all known cases of SHC are women. I tell her that some people believe that arsonist poltergeists are to blame, that the spirits of firestarters roam the cities setting souls on fire.”
― Kevin Wilson, quote from Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories
“Anytime in my life when I see an accumulation of items, a title of ownership in my name, I feel my insides swell. What am I going to do with all of this? Where am I going to put it? So I get rid of it. And I feel calm again. I am a library patron, a renter without an option to buy, a Salvation Arm donator, a spring cleaner of the highest order.
Why then, why in the world, do I work here, surrounded by all of this? It's easy enough. This is art, and it is not mine. I am only looking after it while the real owners are away. Most of all, I suppose, although I may not want things, I don't mind touching them for a while.”
― Kevin Wilson, quote from Tunneling to the Center of the Earth: Stories
“When tending a vast and beautiful garden, you have to plant many seeds, never knowing ahead of time which ones will germinate, which will produce the most glorious flowers, which will bear the sweetest fruit. A good gardener plants them all, tends and nurtures them, and wishes them well. Optimism is the best fertilizer.”
― Kevin J. Anderson, quote from Clockwork Angels
“The engineer’s head was spinning. So he was supposed to receive a guest the president didn’t want to meet. He would tell the guest the truth of the matter without saying anything, and in the middle of all this the president, who didn’t want to meet the guest, would show up to meet the guest.
The engineer realized he was getting into a situation in which one might make a fool of oneself. Other than that, he didn’t understand anything beyond that he must immediately invite the president to the dinner the president himself had just decided should take place.”
― Jonas Jonasson, quote from The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden
“I give the victim the benefit of the doubt when it comes to allegations of rape and sexual abuse. I choose to err on that side of caution. This does not mean I am unsympathetic to the wrongly accused, but if there are sides to be chosen, I am on the side of the victim.”
― Roxane Gay, quote from Bad Feminist
“but we know in the South that the real purpose of manners is to make life easier for everyone, easier both to keep to oneself and to avoid the uneasy commerce of offense and even insult. Either one shakes hands with someone or one ignores him or one kills him. What else is there?”
― Walker Percy, quote from Lancelot
“How many people have never raised their hand before?”
― Steve Martin, quote from Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life
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