Quotes from Waltzing the Cat

Pam Houston ·  288 pages

Rating: (1.4K votes)


“It's September 21st, a day I love for the balance it carries with it.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“Do you write novels?" I said.

"Novels, Lord no," she said. "I can't even stay married.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“For the people of my country," Renato said, "water is everything: love, life, religion... even God."

"It is like that for me too," I said. "In English we call that a metaphor."

"Of course," said Renato, "and water is the most abundant metaphor on earth.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“The more important question, of course, was what the new Lucy would do, and even though I was pretty sure the old Lucy wouldn't be around much anymore, I was a little bit afraid the new Lucy hadn't yet shown up.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“If a situation requires swearing to God it is — by definition — extreme.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat



“Like sometimes when you go to a movie and you get so lost in the story that when you’re walking out of the theater you can’t remember anything at all about your own life.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“Find yourself a place in the universe,' she said, 'a place where the dirt feels like goodness under your feet. Take the right picture and a man will walk into it. If you can bear him even a little, then for a while let him stay.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


“People are supposed to accumulate, I thought, as they get older, but I seem to be sloughing off, like a person wrapped in a hundred layers of cellophane, tearing one layer off at a time, trying to get down to me.”
― Pam Houston, quote from Waltzing the Cat


About the author

Pam Houston
Born place: in The United States
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Popular quotes

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― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown


“I’ll never die", he said. Before I could protest, Lucas put two fingers on my lips, his smile seemed to fill the room with lights and I realized he was telling a deeper kind of truth then I’d ever known before
“You’ll live forever and being remembered by you is the only immortality I’ll ever need if I only live on as a part of you – Bianca, that’s my idea of heaven”
― Claudia Gray, quote from Afterlife


“There's always risk in life's most rewarding pursuits, isn't there?”
― Ted Dekker, quote from Blink


“The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.”
― Edward Gibbon, quote from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire


“Watching the hole in the ever-fading light. It’s the size of a baby now, closing all the time. Narrower and narrower, until there’s barely room to fit an arm through. I’m thinking about quenching the light before the hole shuts—this is just torture—when a face suddenly appears. It’s Bran. The spell has passed and he’s come back. He wants to get through, to be with me. But the hole’s too small. He punches it, pulls at it, slips his fingers into the gap and strains with all his might—but it’s no good. The rock continues to grind together. The hole gets smaller, the width of a finger now.
At the last moment, Bran presses his mouth up to the hole and roars with raw pain and loss, at the top of his voice, “Bec!” It’s the only time he’s ever uttered my name. Anyone’s name. His anguished cry stabs at my heart and tears spring to my eyes. I open my mouth to shout his own name back, to offer whatever small shred of comfort I can… but then the rock closes all the way and a fierce rumbling drowns out the echoes of Bran’s cry.
I stare at the solid rock. My mouth closes. The light fades. Darkness.”
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