Novelists From The United States

"There had been little about our childhood that could be described as paradisiacal. Our alcoholic father was either brutal or sullenly withdrawn. Our mother retaliated with religious fanaticism. As she knelt before plaster images of saints, in the flicker of votive candles, her furious mutter was more like invective than prayer. Their manias kept my parents quite busy, and Elena and I were more or less left to raise ourselves. Elena and I were united only in our unspoken determination to show nothing of what we felt about this embarrassment of a life that our parents had visited upon us. In this we succeeded. To the outside world we were simply quiet children, good at school, not very social, a little high-strung."

"Larry was in his study, going through a pile of papers. Watching him, it occurred to me that I hardly knew him at all. It was as if all these years I'd been seeing him in profile and now that he turned his face to me, it was the face of a stranger."

"[Irene Gentry] "Some people are just so beautiful that life seems to speak to us through them - they're vital, radiant. It's more startling in men than women, I think, because we don't usually let ourselves think of men that way. But Shakespeare knew. Remember the sonnets? 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day,' was written to another man.""

"It was one of those winter days in Los Angeles when the wind has swept away the smog and the air is clear and the light still and everything has the immediacy of a dream. I parked on a street called Overland in the Hollywood Hills. It was lined with white-skinned birch trees. Their nude branches shimmered against the sky. Tattered yellow leaves clogged the gutters and the air was scented with the rainy smell of eucalyptus. There were no cars on the street and the houses were barely visible behind walls and fences and sweeping lawns that had never been trod upon except by gardeners."

"[Irene Gentry] "We all love according to our natures.""

"[Josh and Henry] "Do you want to?" he whispered. I raised myself on my elbow and said, "Of course I do, but I haven't carried rubbers with me since I was sixteen." "Just this once," he said. "You could pull out before - you know." I squeezed his neck between my fingers. "No," I said softly. "There's AIDS, Josh. It's not worth the risk.""

"[Josh, and Henry] He sat down again and looked at me. "I just really wanted to see you again." I looked at him. "Why?" "I've seen you before," he said. "I beg your pardon?" "Two years ago you gave a speech at a rally at UCLA against the sodomy law. Remember?" "I gave so many speeches that year," I said apologetically. He smiled. "I remember. Afterwards I came up and shook your hand." The smile faded and he looked at me gravely. "You gave me the courage to be who I am. But it didn't last." "Few of us come out all at once," I said, gently. "It's not the easiest thing to do." He shook his head and frowned. "I never came out at all." "We are at a gay bar," I said. "It's easy to come out in a bar," he said, "or in bed." A shadow crossed his face. "Are you alright?" He stared down at his hands and said, "No." There was a lot of pain in the little word. He grabbed my hand, clutching it tightly. "What is it Josh?" I asked. "He drew a shaky breath. "My life's a lie," he said. "No one knows who I really am, not my friends or my folks. I can't live this way anymore.""

"They were empty gestures, the kind it was beginning to seem that these people were full of."

"His eyes were judging me. It was as if I was the last of a long line of grown-ups who would fail him."

"[Larry Ross] "There are only two stages to dying, Henry. Being alive and being dead.""

"[Henry Rios, with Aaron Gold] "Every choice closes doors," I said, "and at some point you are left in the little room of yourself. I think most people who get to that room go crazy because they're surrounded with missed possibilities and no principle to explain or justify why they made the choices they did.""

"[Henry, with Katherine Paris] I smiled as charmingly as I knew how. Her hard, intelligent face showed no sign of being charmed."

"[Grant Hancock, with Henry Rios] "As for me, when I die I'll direct my family to bury me without fanfare." I smiled. "When you die, Grant, the tailors and barbers will declare a day of national mourning.""

"The rich are different, I thought: condemned to live their lives in public, they go through their paces at the edge of hysteria like show dogs from which every trait has been bred but anxiety."

"Anything could happen. Together, she and Ulysses could change the world. Or something."

"That was the thing about tragedy. It was just sitting there, keeping you company, waiting. And you had absolutely no idea."

"Her mother called to her. She said, "Where are you going, Flora Belle?" Flora didn't answer her. She never answered her mother when she called her Flora Belle. Sometimes she didn't answer her mother when she called her Flora either."

"Not much goes on in the mind of a squirrel. Huge portions of what is loosely termed "the squirrel brain" are given over to one thought: food. The average squirrel cogitation goes something like this: I wonder what there is to eat."

"There is no predicting what kind of sentences you might say, thought Flora. For instance, who would ever think you would shout, "You're going to vacuum up that squirrel!"?"

"Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name. Nothing."

"Say it, reader. Say the word "quest" out loud. It is an extraordinary word, isn't it? So small and yet so full of wonder, so full of hope.so trthen despererux died i n heaven and in peace"

"And hope is like love... a ridiculous, wonderful, powerful thing."

"When you are a king, you may make as many ridiculous laws as you like. That is what being a king is all about."

"There is those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves is a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman."

"If the rat had not looked over his shoulder, perhaps his heart would not have broken. And it is possible, then, that I would not have a story to tell. But, reader, he did look."

"Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light."

"Despereaux marveled at his own bravery. He admired his own defiance. And then, reader, he fainted. :("

"Reader, you may ask this question; in fact, you must ask this question: Is it ridiculous for a very small, sickly, big-eared mouse to fall in love with a beautiful human princess named Pea? The answer is... yes. Of course, it's ridiculous. Love is ridiculous."

"Despereaux did not know it, but he would need, very soon, to be brave himself."

"Despereaux looked down at the book, and something remarkable happened. The marks on the pages, the "squiggles" as Merlot referred to them, arranged themselves into shapes. The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time"

"The world is dark and light is precious. Come closer, dear reader. You must trust me. I am telling you a story."

"Man is always ready to die for an idea, provided that idea is not quite clear to him."

"Maybe it was written on my face that I'd become aware of human complexity - that's a kinder word than "deceit"."

"The oaks and maples outside the window of his room are wild men with their heads on fire. He shuts his eyes, but the view inside his eyelids is the same nightmare. His nerves are lancinating cables under his skin that send jolts of electricity to his muscles. He is so tremulous that when he brings a glass of water to his lips, he has spilled most of it before he can take a sip. He pukes his insides out, till he imagines the lining of his stomach is smooth and shiny like a copper pot. But the impulse to run is gone. He has put one or perhaps two oceans between him and the place he flees."

"I believe in black holes. I believe that as the universe empties into nothingness, past and future will smack together in the last swirl around the drain."

"But you reach a point where after trying and trying you say, Patience be damned. Let them suffer their distorted worldview. Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole. It's a relief when you arrive at this place, the point of absurdity, because then you are free, you know you owe them nothing."

"The ritual of immigration and baggage claim at Kennedy Airport went by so quickly that I wondered if I'd missed it. Where were the armed soldiers? The dogs? The long lines? The body searches? Where were the tables where your luggage was laid open and a knife taken to the lining?"

"And that is how he passed from this life to the next, without fanfare, with characteristic simplicity, fearless, opening his eyes that last time to make sure we were fine before he went on."

"Ghosh sighed. "I hope one day you see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. The key to your happiness is to own your own slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only your actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.""

"All possibilities resided within me, and they required me to be here. If I left, what would be left of me?"

"When she walked away I felt the weight of what she left unsaid. I wanted to call after her, Ma! You have it all wrong. But just as she kept her thoughts to herself, I was learning to do the same. This was what growing up was about: hide the corpse, don't bare your heart, do make assumptions about the motives of others. They're certainly doing all these things to you."

"Encouraged by the old surgical saw "Any idiot can amputate a led," Ghosh had decided to proceed. If he hesitated, it was because the rest of the saying went "but it takes a skilled surgeon to save one.""

"A rich man's faults are covered with money, but a surgeon's faults are covered with earth."

"... How we treat the least of out brethren, how we treat the peasant suffering with volvulus, that's the measure of this country. Not our fighter planes or tanks, or how big the Emperor's palace happens to be ..."

"Her skills were so rare, so needed for the poorest of the poor, and even at times in the royal palace, that she felt valued. Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted?"

"You can’t set out to achieve your goals without a little madness."

"In a life, it is the in-betweens that are fatal."

"Worry and anxiety are sand in the machinery of life, and faith is the oil."

"Sometimes we have to “live the question,” not push for the answer."

"You can’t walk across a lake just because you change its name to “land.” Labels matter."