"he held out his arms. no mistaking what he meant. transfixed, she hardly breathed. one flicker of movement, and he'd be all over her, pulling her clothes up, wrenching the brown stockings and pressing her down on the stones with the shore flies crawling on bare skin, quoyle, entering her, ramming his great chin into the side of her neck. and afterwards some silent agreement, some sore complicity, betrayal. she burst out. ... 'do you know how he died? my husband? I'll tell you. he's in the sea. he's down at the bottom. I never come beside the sea without thinking - 'herold's there.'' ... she slid down the rock, safe now, protected by grief. quoyle stood away, hands dangling, looking at her."
(bril. simply.)
"wavey ran to get away, then for the sake of running, and at last because there was nothing else to do. it would look undecided to change her pace, as though she did not know what she wanted. it seemed always that she had to keep on performing pointless acts."
(I want to write like this)
"'all of a sudden, something behind him. a hairy devil jumped down the hole like a hockey puck ... red eyes. says to me father ... 'be back for you ... after I washes me pots and pans.' father ... ran forty miles.' ... 'my wife,' bawled quoyle, 'is dead.' ... 'I know that,' said tert card. 'that's not news.'"
(best drunk dialogues ever)
"'edna says the only reason he didn't get her was because she was under the copy desk looking for paper clips when the shooting started. remember how there was never enough paper clips? quoyle, they shot at mercalia on the freeway last week. show you how crazy the scene is, I made a joke about living in california, about LA style. fucking bullet holes through her windshield. missed her by inches. she's scared to death and I'm making jokes. it hit me after edna called what a fucking miserable crazy place we're in. there's no place you can go no more without getting shot or burned or beat. and I was laughing.' and quoyle thought he heard his friend crying on the other side of the continent. or maybe he was laughing again."
(she covers so. fucking. much. ground in this book)
"he'd call him up that night. tell him. what? that he could gut a cod while he talked about advertising space and printing costs? that he was wondering if love came in other colors than the basic black of none and the red heat of obsession?"
(colors. she's very colorful.)
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
quotables / the sweet hereafter
"and then there were those folks who wanted to believe that the accident was not really an accident, that it was somehow caused, and that, therefore, someone was to blame. was it dolores's fault? a lot of people thought so. or was it the fault of the state of new york for not replacing the guardrail out there on the marlowe road? was it the fault of the town highway department for having dug a sandpit and let it fill with water? what about the seat belts that had tied so many of the children into their seats while the rear half of the bus filled with icy water? was it the governor's fault, then, for having generated legislation that required seat belts? who caused the accident anyhow? who can we blame?"
(just like it)
"...some bungling corrupt state agency or some multinational corporation that's cost-accounted the difference between a ten-cent bolt and a million-dollar out-of-court settlement and has decided to sacrifice a few lives for the difference. they do that, work the bottom line; I've seen it play out over and over again, until you start to wonder about the human species. they calculate ahead of time what it will cost them to assure safety versus what they're liekly to be forced to settle for damages when the missing bolt sends the bus over a cliff, and they simply choose the cheaper optoin. and it's up to people like me to make it cheaper to build the bus with that extra bolt, or add the extra yard of guardrail, or drain the quarry. that's the only check you've got against them. that's the only way you can ensure moral responsibility in this society. make it cheaper."
(scary. also, this guy's voice is very lawyerly, very different than the other chars. nice diversity)
"it just wasn't right - to be alive, to have had what people assured you was a close call, and then go out and hire a lawyer; it wasn't right."
(different voice. all his characters are very morally definable. also, this is how I felt after our crash in ohio)
"at that moment, I hated my parents more than I ever had. I hated them for all that had gone before - daddy for what he knew and had done, and mom for what she didn't know and hadn't done - but I also hated them for this new thing, this awful lawsuit. ...why couldn't they just stand up like good people and say to mr. stephens, 'no, forget the lawsuit. we'll get by somehow on our own. it's too harmful to too many people. goodbye, mr. stephens. take your law practice back to new york city, where people like to sue each other.'"
(good. true.)
"they were all sitting in the living room watching television together, like a good american family - it was the simpsons, which was the one show the whole bunch of them thought was funny. me, I can't stand that show; it's insulting."
(this is just for me. glad someone [even a fictional someone] gets it, too)
(just like it)
"...some bungling corrupt state agency or some multinational corporation that's cost-accounted the difference between a ten-cent bolt and a million-dollar out-of-court settlement and has decided to sacrifice a few lives for the difference. they do that, work the bottom line; I've seen it play out over and over again, until you start to wonder about the human species. they calculate ahead of time what it will cost them to assure safety versus what they're liekly to be forced to settle for damages when the missing bolt sends the bus over a cliff, and they simply choose the cheaper optoin. and it's up to people like me to make it cheaper to build the bus with that extra bolt, or add the extra yard of guardrail, or drain the quarry. that's the only check you've got against them. that's the only way you can ensure moral responsibility in this society. make it cheaper."
(scary. also, this guy's voice is very lawyerly, very different than the other chars. nice diversity)
"it just wasn't right - to be alive, to have had what people assured you was a close call, and then go out and hire a lawyer; it wasn't right."
(different voice. all his characters are very morally definable. also, this is how I felt after our crash in ohio)
"at that moment, I hated my parents more than I ever had. I hated them for all that had gone before - daddy for what he knew and had done, and mom for what she didn't know and hadn't done - but I also hated them for this new thing, this awful lawsuit. ...why couldn't they just stand up like good people and say to mr. stephens, 'no, forget the lawsuit. we'll get by somehow on our own. it's too harmful to too many people. goodbye, mr. stephens. take your law practice back to new york city, where people like to sue each other.'"
(good. true.)
"they were all sitting in the living room watching television together, like a good american family - it was the simpsons, which was the one show the whole bunch of them thought was funny. me, I can't stand that show; it's insulting."
(this is just for me. glad someone [even a fictional someone] gets it, too)
quotables / beloved
"but maybe a man was nothing but a man ... they encouraged you to put some of your weight in their hands and soon as you felt how light and lovely that was, they studied your scars and tribulations, after which they did what he had done: ran her children out and tore up the house."
(defeatist? disillusioned? important for writing a simi.char)
"'a man ain't nothing but a man,' said baby suggs. 'but a son? well now, that's somebody.'"
(I suck at writing parents)
"what she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children."
(great language)
"as though a handful of myrtle stuck in the handle of a pressing iron propped against the door in a whitewoman's kitchen could make it hers. as though mint sprig in the mouth changed the breath as well as its odor."
(everything in 3rdP has to do something for char)
(defeatist? disillusioned? important for writing a simi.char)
"'a man ain't nothing but a man,' said baby suggs. 'but a son? well now, that's somebody.'"
(I suck at writing parents)
"what she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children."
(great language)
"as though a handful of myrtle stuck in the handle of a pressing iron propped against the door in a whitewoman's kitchen could make it hers. as though mint sprig in the mouth changed the breath as well as its odor."
(everything in 3rdP has to do something for char)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Monday, April 7, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
unexpectations
unexpected things make me happy. I mean that in both ways, too - things that are unexpected, and things that perhaps shouldn't make me happy.
case in point: doing laundry this morning, one of those va-va-voom low rider cars pulls up in front of my building. tricked out tailpipe, pimp my ride rims, all of it. the guy driver leaves his ride neutralling while he goes to the office. oh, and his windows are down. guess what's pouring out? avril lavigne. yep. it was cool - "complicated" while I was going to the laundry room, "sk8er boi" while I was coming back. put a huge smile on my face. he came back as I was standing on my balcony, and I watched him va-va-voom off. smile.
case in point: doing laundry this morning, one of those va-va-voom low rider cars pulls up in front of my building. tricked out tailpipe, pimp my ride rims, all of it. the guy driver leaves his ride neutralling while he goes to the office. oh, and his windows are down. guess what's pouring out? avril lavigne. yep. it was cool - "complicated" while I was going to the laundry room, "sk8er boi" while I was coming back. put a huge smile on my face. he came back as I was standing on my balcony, and I watched him va-va-voom off. smile.
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