Jesse Bare > Jesse's Quotes

“When I walked behind her I wanted to place my finger on her delicate collarbone. I wanted to ingest her like one of my father’s communion wafers and let her instruct me, like Jesus, from the inside.”
― Darcey Steinke, Sister Golden Hair: A Novel

“No one loves a city like one born to it, and no one loves a city like an immigrant. No one loves a city like they do when they are young, and no one loves a city like they do when they are old. The people loved the city of Azril in more ways than could be counted. Vitrine loved her city like demons and cats may love things, with an eye towards ownership and the threat of small mayhem.”
― Nghi Vo, The City in Glass

“It was her voice that drew you in, that low, twangy voice, wouldn’t matter if she was saying the alphabet, what you heard was the rustle of hay. She could make you smell the smoke from an unlit fire. * * *”
― Annie Proulx, Close Range

“You are the call and I am the answer, You are the wish, and I the fulfillment, You are the night, and I the day. What else? It is perfect enough. It is perfectly complete, You and I, What more—? Strange, how we suffer in spite of this!” —D. H. Lawrence
“Bei Hennef”
― Stephen King, Lisey's Story

“He pulled back onto the empty road. There were a few ranch lights miles away, the black sky against the black terrain drawing them into the hem of the starry curtain. As he drove toward the clangor and flash of the noon arena he considered the old saddle bronc rider rubbing leather for thirty-seven years, Leecil riding off into the mosquito-clouded Canadian sunset, the ranch hand bent over a calf, slitting the scrotal sac. The course of life’s events seemed slower than the knife but not less thorough. There was more to it than that, he supposed, and heard again her hoarse, charged voice saying “Everything.” It was all a hard, fast ride that ended in the mud. He passed a coal train in the dark, the dense rectangles that were the cars gliding against indigo night, another, and another, and another. Very slowly, as slowly as light comes on a clouded morning, the euphoric heat flushed through him, or maybe just the memory of it.”
― Annie Proulx, Close Range

“Clock snips time in two Lap of rain In the drain pipe Two o’clock And never you. Never you, down the evening, I cannot14 Cry, or even smile Acidly or bitter-sweetly For never you and incompletely. Things surround me; I could touch Soap or toothbrush Desk or chair. Never mind the three dimensions All is flat, and you not there. Letters, paper, stamps And white. And black. typewritten-you, and there It is. The trickle, liquid trickle Of rain in drain-pipe Is voice enough For me tonight. And the click-click Hard quick click-click Of the clock Is pain enough, enough heart-beat15 For me tonight. The narrow cot, The iron bed Is space enough And warmth enough …16 Enough, enough. To bed and sleep And tearless creep The formless seconds Minutes hours And never you The raindrops weep”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“The graves were overgrown with weeds but they were still visible on a rise above the river. The crosses were rotted but the stones were there. I spent the better part of the afternoon at Mangel’s grave. I told him about Buck. They weren’t the best of friends but I figured he’d want to know. I talked about Moze too. If Mangel hadn’t showed up when he did I wouldn’t be telling this tale. I got the better half of that partnership. It was early for wildflowers but I found some yellow columbines and laid them on his grave. I’d asked Carlos once about dogs in heaven. He figured that if there was a heaven, dogs had as much right to it as anybody and more right than most. It was heaven that he was less sure of. He talked about freedom and being fully alive instead. He told me once that he thought hell was more a state of mind than a real place. Believe he felt the same about heaven. I put in a word for Mangel. Figured it couldn’t hurt. I told him that if there was a heaven I’d look for his sign and I’d follow the tracks through eternity till I found him.”
― Dennis McCarthy, The Gospel According to Billy the Kid: A Novel

“It was a roaring spring morning with green in the sky, the air spiced with sand sagebrush and aromatic sumac. NPR faded from the radio in a string of announcements of corporate supporters, replaced by a Christian station that alternated pabulum preaching and punchy music. He switched to shit-kicker airwaves and listened to songs about staying home, going home, being home and the errors of leaving home.”
― Annie Proulx, That Old Ace in the Hole: A Novel

“For a moment everything was clear, and when that happens you see that the world is barely there at all. Don't we all secretly know this? It's a perfectly balanced mechanism of shouts and echoes pretending to be wheels and cogs, a dreamclock chiming beneath a mystery-glass we call life. Behind it? Below it and around it? Chaos, storms. Men with hammers, men with knives, men with guns. Women who twist what they cannot dominate and belittle what they cannot understand. A universe of horror and loss surrounding a single lighted stage where mortals dance in defiance of the dark.”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

“Quite nice! To contemplate the extermination of the human species and the long pause that follows before some other species crops up, it calms you more than anything else. And if we go on in this way, with everybody, intellectuals, artists, government, industrialists and workers all frantically killing off the last human feeling, the
last bit of their intuition, the last healthy instinct; if it goes on in algebraical progression, as it is going on: then ta−tah! to the human species! Goodbye! darling! the serpent swallows itself and leaves a void, considerably messed up, but not hopeless. Very nice! When savage wild dogs bark in Wragby, and savage wild pit−ponies
stamp on Tevershall pit−bank! te deum laudamus!'
Connie laughed, but not very happily.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover - Annotated: Reawakening Desire - Unexpurgated Edition

“Even now, with my eyes closed, I sometimes see that child coming from the sea, her face smiling, her thin body outlined against the white clinging dress and her hands reaching for her lover. I cannot hear a gull’s cry without seeing her for she will haunt me till the day I die, and after death, wherever it is my soul goes, she will be there; a child killed for a King, by law, in Camelot.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Enemy of God

“It was our first time being quiet doing anything and we were ashamed, but we could not help it. We wanted to be like them, to become ever louder and brighter, but we could feel their futures slipping through our fingers, because we were not stupid. We could tell who was going to peak early and we were not. Even when we were happy, even when we reassured each other we were really living, there was a feeling lying in us that we were not. We squashed our faces against the glass of our own lives. Is this it? we asked. Are we having fun like they have fun? Are we in love like they are in love? We filled up our days following them, watching them, waiting to be invited in. We ran from the truth that the answer was in the question. We were not, and never would be, satisfied.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“He thought sometimes of leaving to look for Agnes Lake, but his thoughts of her were like dreams, and in his dreams Deadwood was where she was, and he was afraid he would lose her if he left.”
― Pete Dexter, Deadwood

“Save me Jesus. Save me Lord. She smiled at the spiders dangling like acrobats above her head, listened to the mouse's minuscule feet gallop against the far wall. The bear wore a velvet top hat and his emerald ring. He said reading the letter put him in the mood to recite a little poem he'd composed all by himself. Never eat porridge from an ivory spoon. Don't drink all the sumac wine or you'll die too soon. Kneel down by the tiger lilies on hot summer days. Don't ever bother reading those boring Shakespeare plays. Sandy heard the troll lock the basement door. She blew her own warm breath down between her breasts in an effort to heat up her heart. A teaspoon of light glinted on the shovel lying against the far wall. She was a little monkey. She was a little bird.”
― Darcey Steinke, Jesus Saves

“From this experience also, a faith arises to carry back to a human world of small lusts and deceitful pettiness. A faith, naïve and child like perhaps, born as it is from the infinite simplicity of nature. It is a feeling that no matter what the ideas or conduct of others, there is a unique rightness and beauty to life which can be shared in openness, in wind and sunlight, with a fellow human being who believes in the same basic principles. Yet, when such implicit belief is placed in another person, it is indeed shattering to realize that a part of what to you was such a rich, intricate, whole conception of life has been tossed off carelessly, lightly – it is then that a stunned, inarticulate numbness paralyzes words, only to give way later to a deep hurt. It is hard for me to say on paper what I believe would best be reserved for a lucid vocal discussion. But somehow I did want you to know a little of what your surprising and perhaps injudiciously confidential information did to me yesterday. A feeling that there was no right to condemn, but that still somehow there was a crumbling of faith and trust. A feeling that there was a way to rationalize, to condone, if only by relegating a fellow human from the unique to the usual.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

“Men can be brilliant and strong, they whispered to one another. But men can be mad, as well. And the mad ones can ruin the world. Women, you must judge them… Never again can things be allowed to reach this pass, they said to one another as they thought of the sacrifice the Scouts had made. Never again can we let the age-old fight go on between good and bad men alone. Women, you must share responsibility…and bring your own talents into the struggle… And always remember, the moral concluded: Even the best men – the heroes – will sometimes neglect to do their jobs. Women, you must remind them, from time to time…”
― David Brin, The Postman

“She straightened up the trailer, ran the vacuum cleaner over the braided rug, spread a clean tablecloth and put fresh shelf paper in the kitchen cupboards. That was a little job. In the old days she would have stuffed the dirty paper in the stove and burned it. The electric stove was clean but it couldn’t dry socks, burn paper, raise bread or provide comfort. Cost money to run it. They called it progress. By nine there was nothing”
― Annie Proulx, Postcards

“We should have stayed lawmen and left these boys at home,” Augustus said. “Half of ’em will get drowned or hit by lightning before we hit Montana. We should have just gone ourselves and found some rough old town and civilized it. That’s the way to make a reputation these days.” “I don’t want a reputation,” Call said. “I’ve had enough outlaws shoot at me. I’d rather have a ranch.” “Well, I got to admit I still like a fight,” Augustus said. “They sharpen the wits. The only other thing that does that is talking to women, which is usually more dangerous.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“He reached the Devil’s River Bridge at sundown and half way across he pulled the cruiser to a halt and turned on the rooflights and got out and shut the door and walked around in front of the vehicle and stood leaning on the aluminum pipe that served for the top guardrail. Watching the sun set into the blue reservoir beyond the railroad bridge to the west. A westbound semi coming around the long curve of the span downshifted when the lights came into view. The driver leaned from the window as he passed. Dont jump, Sheriff. She aint worth it. Then he was gone in a long suck of wind, the diesel engine winding up and the driver double clutching and shifting gears. Bell smiled. Truth of the matter is, he said, she is.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“You fooled people. You gave yourself out in small increments and reinvented yourself at whim. Your secret ways nullified the means to mark your death with vengeance. I thought I knew you. I passed my childish hatred off as intimate knowledge. I never mourned you. I assailed your memory. You fronted a stern rectitude. You cut it loose on Saturday nights. Your brief reconciliations drove you chaotic. I won’t define you that way. I won’t give up your secrets so cheaply. I want to learn where you buried your love.”
― James Ellroy, My Dark Places: A True Crime Autobiography

“Thetis in tears replied, “My boy, my child, why did I birth you for such suffering? Why did I mother you, take care of you? I wish you could sit quietly by your ships, 550 and never have to suffer tears or trouble, because it is your destiny to live so very short a time, not long at all. But even as your death runs fast behind you you are the most unhappy man alive. A curse attended at your birth. I shall go to Olympus where the snow lies deep 420 and talk to Zeus, who loves the thunderbolt. I hope I can persuade him. And meanwhile, sit by your ships and rage against the Greeks, 560 and stay entirely away from war.”
― Homer, The Iliad

“She knew when he looked at her, when most looked at her, they saw a poor girl. Not poor like Patch, because her grandmother drove the bus and they owned a decent home because her grandfather had insurance, but poor in an altogether more complex way. A poor girl who had no sense of style, or femininity, no chance of finding a boy and then a man. A girl who looked to books for answers to questions that would never be asked of her. Weighed questions that had nothing to do with fashion or baking or making a goddamn motherfucking home.”
― Chris Whitaker, All the Colors of the Dark

“I was a case study in teenage intransigence. I held an ironclad, steel-buffed, pathologically derived and empirically valid hole card: the ability to withdraw and inhabit a world of my own mental making. Friendship meant minor indignities. Raucous laughs with the guys meant assuming a subservient role. The cost felt negligible. I knew how to reap profit from estrangement. I didn’t know that costs accrue. I didn’t know that you always pay for what you suppress.”
― James Ellroy, My Dark Places: A True Crime Autobiography

“Call listened with some amusement—not that the incident hadn’t been terrible. Being decapitated was a grisly fate, whether you were a Yankee or not. But then, amusing things happened in battle, as they did in the rest of life. Some of the funniest things he had ever witnessed had occurred during battles. He had always found it more satisfying to laugh on a battlefield than anywhere else, for if you lived to laugh on a battlefield, you could feel you had earned the laugh. But if you just laughed in a saloon, or at a social, the laugh didn’t reach deep.”
― Larry McMurtry, Streets Of Laredo

“It was quiet while they both fit their cigars this way and that in their mouths and thought about the nature of peeders. After a while the bartender said, “I expect that’s what keeps a whorehouse in business.” Charley said, “What keeps it in business is those that would otherwise go without. There’s miners come in every week, don’t even take off their pants.” “I heard of that, they just talk.” “It’s to have somebody know they’re here.”
― Pete Dexter, Deadwood

“Take this house.” Vane waved toward the summer house about which the party spread across the shadowed lawns. “I don’t deny its splendor, and certainly not the expense, but the gilding! It’s laid on like plaster so the eye has nowhere to rest. A single detail, given prominence, would be far more expressive.” “And an aristocracy,” Martha asked in a dangerous tone, “has natural taste?” “Good taste or bad?” The voice came from behind Martha, and she turned to see a short, round-faced man. First he smiled at her, then he looked toward Vane for an introduction. Vane was grudging, but obliged. “Mrs. Martha Crowl, allow me to name Lord Robert Massedene.” “Your charmed servant, ma’am. I assumed Kit had an eye for beauty, but I never before realized how laudable was his admiration for the nobility.” Martha smiled. “Do you have natural taste, my lord?” “I have none at all. The aristocracy, ma’am, founded their dynasties by being better thieves than anyone else. Whatever glittered, they took, and the true aristocracy has never lost that healthy vulgarity.” “Gilded thieves?” Martha asked with amusement. “Who would now steal this land from you. I do hope you will resist us.” Martha was clearly charmed by his lordship. “You don’t want to win, my lord?” “Win what?” Massedene feigned alarm. “America, my dear Mrs. Crowl, is a wilderness with an unendurable climate. It is too hot in summer, too cold in winter, and fit only for insects, snakes, and raving Baptists. God only knows why we fight for it.”
― Bernard Cornwell, Redcoat

“You’re too damn contrary,” Gus said. “I’ve never known a person more apt to take the opposite view than you—you’re too damn gripy.” “I expect I’ve spent too much time with mules,” Call said.”
― Larry McMurtry, Dead Man's Walk

“There’s no remedy for bad luck, is there?” he said, addressing the question to no one in particular. “If Watson hadn’t raised his arm just when he did, the worst he would have gotten out of this episode would have been a broken arm. But he lifted his gun and the bullet had a clear path to his vitals. I’ll miss the man. He was someone to talk wives with.” “What, sir?” Augustus asked. The remark startled him. “Wives, Mr. McCrae,” Inish Scull said. “You’re a bachelor. I doubt you can appreciate the fascination of the subject—but James Watson appreciated it. He was on his third wife when he had the misfortune to catch his dying. He and I could talk wives for hours.” “Well, but what happened to his wives?” Long Bill inquired. “I’m a married man. I’d like to know.” “One died, one survives him, and the one in the middle ran off with an acrobat,” the Captain said. “That’s about average for wives, I expect. You’ll find that out soon enough, Mr. McCrae, if you take it into your head to marry.”
― Larry McMurtry, Comanche Moon

“Sometimes she spoke of places he wondered if she had made up because they sounded right, or if in truth her world was a galaxy to his grain of sand. “We’ve eaten so much pasta we can barely breathe. You’re wearing a white shirt and there’s a spot of sauce, but it’s on your blind side so you don’t even know.” He frowned at that, and she seemed to sense it because she laughed. “I’d lean forward and wipe it for you. I’d spit on my napkin and give it a scrub.” “And then they’d ask us to leave.” She laughed again and the sound was sweet. “I’d tell them they were in the presence of a pirate, and they should watch their step or he’d slice them with his sword.” “Cutlass.” “Fucken cutlass then.” He liked it when she cursed. It sounded wrong. Like a nun or a teacher cursing. He coughed and tasted blood but did not tell her because there were more important things to say. “I was lost before.” “You’re still lost, Patch.” “Two people are less lost than one.” “Have you considered writing poetry?”
― Chris Whitaker, All the Colors of the Dark

“Will you come find me?” Grace said. “I won’t have to. We’ll walk out of this place together. And we won’t leave each other’s side. Because no one will realize. No one will know like we know.” “They’ll think they do, Patch. They’ll think they can imagine it. And they’ll tilt their heads to one side in sympathy. They’ll make us see shrinks who’ve sat in fancy libraries in fancy universities and read stories like ours. They’ll reference Charcot and Freud, and William James and Pierre Janet. They’ll read the same books I do. And they’ll draw the same conclusions. Eventually.” He took her hand. “What conclusions?” “That people like us exist in a state of crisis. That it will be a miracle if we die of natural causes. We’ll turn to drink or drugs, and we won’t form close relationships because we’ll keep too much from others.” “We don’t need anyone else,” he said. “We do. You just don’t realize it yet. Unhealthy pursuits. We’ll exist at the extremes because the middle is where the healthy pass their time.” “Will we be okay?” he asked, and could not stop the words from leaving his lips. “Not one part of us.”
― Chris Whitaker, All the Colors of the Dark