Catholics From The United States

"White seagulls, luminous in the new daylight, were circling high overhead against the blue of the clean sky, whistling and piping in the open, unechoing air as if calling out the news of the soon-returning spring."

"Cochran recalled that during the French Revolution they had even re-named all the calendar months; the only one he could remember was Thermidor, and he wondered what the others could have been. Fricassee? Jambalaya? Chowder?"

"People in 1900 didn’t think that radium could hurt you, just carrying a chip of it in your pocket like a lucky rock, and then one day their legs fell off and they died of cancer. Not believing something is no help if you turn out to be wrong."

"Sukie had always said that the Alice books were the Old and New Testaments for ghosts—which Pete had never understood; after all, Lewis Carroll hadn’t been dead yet when he’d written them."

"He thought about crossing his fingers, but clasped her hand instead."

"In the early eighties, savvy Japanese had been scouring Melrose for old leather jackets and jukeboxes, and nervous tourists would drive by to look at the punks with green mohawks; now the funny hairstyles looked as if they’d been done at the Beverly Center. Like a government-subsidized avant-garde, Sullivan had thought as he’d tooled his old van down the crowded avenue, affluent disenfranchisement is just galvanic twitching in a dead frog’s leg."

"Gambling was the place where statistics and profound human consequences met most nakedly, after all, and cards, even more than dice or the numbers on a roulette wheel, seemed able to define and perhaps even dictate a player’s...luck."

"It’s important to feel good about yourself. This morning I met somebody I really like—me."

"All wrong. The words seemed in this moment to describe Hale’s whole life."

"I’m really willing to try to believe you’re not crazy, but you gotta help me a little, you know?"

"The landlord crossed himself when they checked in, but an English ten-pound note for a week’s lodging overcame whatever superstitious misgivings the man may have had."

"“God help us,” said Crawford softly. “If there is one.” Byron grinned. “A whole lot of ghastly things have turned out to be possible, remember.”"

"Processions of priests and religiosi have been for several days past praying for rain; but the gods are either angry, or nature is too powerful."

"She’s probably only now beginning to be able to think for herself, he thought. And she’ll be hating it. Will she acknowledge the responsibilities that she can now clearly see, or will they be so appalling that she’ll just want to return to the selfless haze?"

"He was dizzy, and it occurred to him that Newton must have been right when he’d said that light consisted of particles, for today he could feel them hitting him."

"The church has become a more...exclusive club since the founder’s day, it’s clear. No doubt the Devil is more hospitable."

"He tried to put more conviction into his voice than he felt, and he mentally cursed any God that there might be, for having made this coming ordeal not only tremendously difficult and dangerous, but possibly pointless too."

"Every ruler wants to maintain the status quo."

"And everybody there thought we were! So who cares? So I care—you are what people think you are, which is why it’s so important to get them thinking you’re someone who...counts. Gaah."

"“How does my offer sound? ”Rivas took a long thoughtful sip. “Let’s see,” he said finally. “It sounds insincere, impossible, and definitely, absolutely unattractive.”"

"People are so tasty when they’re truly embittered, truly despairing...and that’s when they come to Sevatividam. They can’t stand the bitter rain, so they run in under one of the two awnings—religion or dissipation—and guess who’s waiting for them under both awnings at once..."

"The seas and the weathers are what is; your vessels adapt to them or sink."

"“Whats o’clock?” It wants a quarter to twelve, And to-morrow’s doomsday."

"It wasn’t fair, but fairness was something you had to go get; it wasn’t delivered like the mail."

"Your policy here, and in all the Arab states, has been to get out as much oil as you could, before the indigenous peoples looked around and noticed that they were living in the twentieth century."

"Rivas smiled, remembering his response to his first taking of the Jaybird sacrament—while the rest of the recovering communicants had been praising the Lord Jaybush and making sure they knew when the sacrament would be administered again so as not to miss it, young Gregorio Rivas, though stunned, exhausted and glad to have found shelter and company, was coldly appraising the situation. He didn’t doubt that the mysterious Norton Jaybush was certainly more than a man and possibly a god, but the prospect of abandoning his individuality in order to “merge with the Lord” was profoundly repugnant to him."

"When they’d gone the old man turned around to watch the sun’s slow descent. The Boat of Millions of Years, he thought; the boat of the dying sungod Ra, tacking down the western sky to the source of the dark river that runs through the underworld from west to east, through the twelve hours of the night, at the far eastern end of which the boat will tomorrow reappear, bearing a once again youthful, newly reignited sun. Or, he thought bitterly, removed from us by a distance the universe shouldn’t even be able to encompass, it’s a vast motionless globe of burning gas, around which this little ball of a planet rolls like a pellet of dung propelled by a kephera beetle. Take your pick, he told himself as he started slowly down the hill...But be willing to die for your choice."

"Say that again after you’ve been in the same spot and acted differently, old buddy. Maybe then I’ll be ashamed."

"“How old are you, Brian? You ought to know by now that something always breaks up love affairs unless both parties are willing to compromise themselves. And that compromising is harder to do the older and less flexible and more independent you are. It just isn’t in you, Brian. You could no more get married now than you could become a priest, or a sculptor, or a greengrocer.” Duffy opened his mouth to voice angry denials, then one corner turned up and he closed it. “Damn you,” he said wryly. “Then why do I want to, half the time?” Aurelianus shrugged. “It’s the nature of the species. There’s a part of a man’s mind that can only relax and go to sleep when he’s with a woman, and that part gets tired of always being tensely awake. It gives orders in so loud a voice that it often drowns out the other components. But when the loud one is asleep at last, the others regain control and chart a new course.” He grinned. “No equilibrium is possible. If you don’t want to put up with the constant seesawing, you must either starve the logical components or bind, gag and lock away in a cellar that one insistent one.” Duffy grimaced and drank some more brandy. “I’m used to the rocking, and I was never one to get motion-sick,” he said. “I’ll stay on the seesaw.” Aurelianus bowed. “You have that option, sir.”"

"I’ve learned that having a lot of money is more fun than not having a lot of money, and that once you’ve got it, it tends to grow all by itself, like a fire."

"The wages of courage is death, lad, but it’s the wages of everything else, too."

"You’re still Brian Duffy. As much as you ever were. But you’re Arthur, too, and that kind of outshines everything else. Brandy and water tastes more like brandy than water, after all."

"“You ever notice, Joe,” he asked, mechanically picking up the mug, “that it always takes a little more trouble to get something than the thing was really worth?” Joe considered it. “Better than taking a lot of trouble and getting nothing.” Dundee sipped the coffee. He didn’t seem to have heard Joe. “There’s so much weariness and fatigue in it all. For every action there is an equal...stupefaction. No, that might be bearable—it’s greater than the action.”"

"Trusting Merlin is like giving a migrant scorpion a lift inside your hat."

"It’s too bad she’s the first girl I ever really knew, Thomas thought. I have no way of knowing whether all girls are this way or if she’s unique. I wonder if every guy heaves an instinctive sigh of relief when he’s kissed his girl goodnight, and the door is shut, and he can go relax by himself?"

"Gladhand sipped his whiskey. “Bourbon renewal, I called this,” he said, waving his glass. “One sip and the whole neighborhood looks better.”"

"“Weird evening,” he said. “With this wind and all.” Gladhand nodded. “Several hundred years ago it was considered a valid defense in a murder trial if you could prove the Santa Ana wind was blowing when the murder was committed. The opinion was that the dry, hot wind made everybody so irritable that any murder was almost automatically excusable. Or so I’ve heard, anyway.” Thomas pondered it. “There might be something to that,” he said. “No,” Gladhand said. “There isn’t. Start sanctioning heat-of-anger crimes and you’ve lost the last hold on the set of conventions we call…society, civilization.”"

"It struck Duffy that a touch of hysteria had sharpened the good fellowship tonight, as if the night wind whistling under the eaves carried some pollen of impermanence, making everyone nostalgic for things they hadn’t yet lost."

"Art, like a lot of things, is a lost art."

"He felt as if someone far away below in the darkness was chipping away at the pillars of his mind, and the steady crack...crack...crack of it was the only sound in the universe."

"Certainly no valid answer is ever gained by excluding any factors of the problem; that was the Puritans’ error."

"“What was that building?” Thomas asked, leaning on the coping, and staring out at the conflagration. “Oh, a city office bombed by radicals,” Spencer answered, “or a radicals’ den bombed by city officers. I just hope it doesn’t spread real far on this wind.”"

"“Work out your own damnation,” he said breathlessly, “in fear and trembling.”"

"Biscuit sighed and lifted from the mantle the glass box with Grandpa Coldharp’s oracular penny in it. It was an Indian head penny, minted in 1909, and when the box was shaken the penny bounced around inside but always came up heads; the family tradition was that you could ask it any question, as long as the answer was yes."

"“There’s something you should know about me.” “What’s that?” “I don’t know, but you should know it.”"

"What would Dad say, Frank wondered briefly, if he knew I was making a living as an art forger? He’d understand. As he once told me, while squinting against the hideous sunlight of a cold morning, “Frankie, if it was easy they'd have got somebody else to do it.”"

"You protect the ones you love. He clung to the thought. Even if they ignorantly resent you for it."

"“Nolo contendere spelled backward is reincarnation.” “Uh—no it’s not.” “Yes it is. I heard it on the radio.”"

"“This fruit syrup stuff is no good for smoking; it’s only fit for impressing ignorant girls.” Tyler shrugged, as if to say that that was reason enough to smoke it right there."

"“Yes, you’re right, I did kill her, I do remember. With a gun. She disrespected me.” He nodded. “One does what one has to do—I don’t blame myself. I was always true to my own conscience.” The last sentences had a rote sound, as if he’d said them many times. “Your conscience? You were always true to your, your narcissism.”"