Mine Quotes
"Sometimes she regretted being a mother; sometimes the baby killed her dreams."
"A mother had to know a lot of tricks; it was a tough job."
"She wanted to be loved. More than anything in the world. Was that too much to ask?"
"I don't have anything," Laura said, "that's mine."
"Deserve was a dangerous word, Laura thought. It was a word that built barriers, and made wrong seem right."
"It's having someone who needs you, day and night. That's what I want."
"But the stairway to heaven had broken, and who had time for a whole lotta love?"
"Nothin' better than bein' out in the woods doin' a little shootin'."
"The world was dark and full of evil, and it chewed up little red-haired baby girls."
"She felt as if she'd missed a train that would not come again, and she was still haunting the station with an un-punched ticket."
"They could not stop, could not slow down, or they would fall back into the teeth."
"Over the years she'd watched Doug climb from a junior position at his firm to a position of real responsibility."
"Sooner or later, the world would break you down to tears and regrets."
"It was a mean place to bring a child into, but it was the only world there was."
"Five to one, baby / One in five / No one here gets out alive / You get yours, baby / I'll get mine."
"Make friends with agony. Embrace it, kiss it, stroke it. Love the pain, and you win the game."
"When you knew how to fall, you truly knew how to stand."
"No one had ever beaten her at the hunt. No one."
"It had been his bad karma to cross her path."
"You fall down, and you stand up again. You keep going no matter what."
"The paths of the boy and the beast had crossed, and the beast had won."
"The inevitable questions came like hammerblows: Where did I fail? What did I do wrong? What is he getting from a stranger than I can't give him?"
"Babies were killers of dreams, she thought. They promised the future, and then they died."
"You could get a baby at the same place any mother did, she realized. You could get a baby at a hospital."
"A stern inner voice, commanding her to keep going. Doug was a criminal."
"The pressure was too much, it was killing her. David had hold of her guts, and he didn't want to let go."
"Something broke inside her; not David's grip, but at a deeper level."
"She gritted her teeth and felt the warm tears streaking down her cheeks, and she knew it was over with Doug."
"It amazed her that anybody had ever been born."
"He was a fragile-looking thing, with tiny fingers and toes, the bump of a nose, and a pink-lipped mouth."
"Skeleton, nerves, veins, intestines, brain; he was whole and complete, and he was hers."
"Blood was rushing through them, his heart was beating, and his lungs were at work: the miracle had come true."
"It was a hard world, and people could burn love to cinders and crush the ashes."
"But in this moment of time the mother held her son close and spoke softly to him, and all the hardness of that world was shunted aside."
"She kissed David's forehead and tasted his sweet skin."
"She watched him blink, watched the pale blue eyes search the realm of his sensations."
"I thought the nurses had to keep their hands clean."
"I sent your father downstairs," Laura's mother said. "I think we need to talk, don't you?"
"Doug's been having an affair since October," she began, and she saw her mother's mouth open in a small gasp.
"No, I know where I'm going now," Mary answered. She flashed a quick smile and went on.
"You have a history. A life together, and now a son. You have a fine house, you drive a fine car, and you're not wanting for anything."
"He'll outgrow it," the older woman said. "You have to be there for him, and he'll know that what he has at home is priceless."
"I want my baby back," Laura said, her eyes deep with tears.
"You people had better have a damned good lawyer!"
"We're going to sue this damned hospital for ten million dollars, that's what we're going to do."
"It's you, isn't it, Mary? Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?"
"With shotgun shells and walking hell and dead men all in a row."
"She's losing her mind," Miriam said matter-of-factly.
"This is ... my house," she said. "My house. You're a guest here. In my house, I'll do what I please when I please."
"What about the burned dolls?" she asked, her voice as raw as a wound.
"They found a box of dolls in a closet! They were all torn up, some of them burned and others ... crushed and stuff."
"LISTEN TO ME!" she screamed, and Miriam was knocked backward by the power of her daughter's voice as surely as if she'd been punched.
"It's a mighty big country. Plus there's Canada and Mexico to consider. People change their hair and clothes, they create new identities, and they learn how to walk and talk differently."
"Folks are trusting. If somebody tells you something, you're likely to believe it."
"These Most Wanted fugitives grow eyes in the backs of their heads. They learn to smell the wind and listen to the railroad tracks."
"I don't want things to be like this. Between you and me, I mean."
"I've always wanted a baby. One of my own, I mean. From my own body."
"I played the game for as long as I could stand it. Then I knew: your world would break me if I didn't fight back."
"Your world would have killed me, Mother. Can't you understand?"
"People just forgot. I'm going to make them remember."
"I'm a soldier. My war didn't end. It'll never end."
"He'll carry on the fight. I'll teach him what we did for freedom, and he'll know the war's never over."
"I did it because I didn't want to see that child hurt, and I hoped."
"I hate what tries to kill me, body or spirit."
"Thanks for helping me with Drummer. Sorry I had to take the ring, but I'm going to need some money."
"You can be proud of me for this, Mother: I never gave up what I believed in. I never quit. That counts for something, doesn't it?"
"It'll make a fine epitaph on your gravestone."
"Because some pigs have the sixth sense. Some pigs can smell fear."
"You'd better watch your back, sister. You don't know for sure who sent that message."
"If you try to resist the breeze, you get a broken back."
"Just the freedom to speak and write, and up at Rock City I play my pennywhistle and meditate. Life is very good."
"Shoot the baby first. Then take as many pigs with you as you can. Does that sound reasonable?"
"If they had to leave this world together, so be it."
"Things change, and you have to change with them. If you don't... well, look what happened to Abbie Hoffman."
"I want the book to be a history of the Storm Front, and there's a lot I don't know."
"We didn't think we'd ever have to grow up. But you can't fight time, that's the one thing you can't put a bullet into or blow apart with a bomb."
"If we can make money off the hell we went through, why shouldn't we?"
"No one cared. No one. I had stolen this child and blown my disguise, had put myself in mortal danger... and all for what?"
"Sometimes, I get crazy. I don't know why. My head hurts, and I can't think straight. Maybe everybody feels like that sometimes, huh?"
"The things we did for him... are unspeakable. He played our souls like violins, and made us obey like trained animals."
"Every day of my life since 1972 I've been looking over my shoulder, scared to death of what might be coming up behind."
"I sleep maybe three hours a night, on good nights. Sometimes I open my eyes in the dark and I've jammed myself into a closet without knowing it."
"And with every breath I take I know that I stole the life from fellow human beings."
"I carry one around with me. So if you're going to turn me over to the police, I'll tell you this: they can't do anything to me. I'm not here. I'm dead, and I've been dead for a very long time."
"Mary's dangerous. Dangerous to herself, dangerous to your baby."
"But the pain she’d endured was showing, in the dark hollows under her eyes, the lines on her forehead, and at the corners of her grim-lipped mouth."
"In a world of deceits, wasn't that the only true thing left?"
"Her pulse had begun to knock, like Death's fist on a bolted door."
"The world needed more writers who didn't give a damn about best seller lists, and who wrote with their heart's blood."
"The seconds were ticking past. The snake of loyalty had lifted its head from the ashes, and hissed a warning at her."
"She had chosen her road, and the snake was dead."
"The baby's crying was strident, a demand for attention."
"You don't stand for anything, and you don't believe in anything."
"What was the point of disabling the van if David would die as the result?"
"It might have been the hardest thing she'd ever had to do."
"You knew him by one of his names: Raymond Fletcher."
"She wanted to lie on the ground, curl up, and cry in the cold."
"I hope you suffer good and long for trying to steal my baby."
"Did she dare to dial it? What would happen if she recognized Jack's voice?"
"Her heart was pounding. What would she say? What could she say?"