Red Clocks Quotes
"This, anyway, is the story the biographer likes. It is a simple, easy story that allows her not to think about what’s happening in the women’s heads, or in the heads of the husbands who sometimes accompany them."
"Serious rocks, fat bands of glitter. They live on the fingers of women who have leather sofas and solvent husbands but whose cells and tubes and bloods are failing at their animal destiny."
"The nurse holds the biographer’s file and a pen to write measurements. The doctor will call out how thick the lining, how large the follicles, how many the follicles."
"Aunt Flo visited again, did she? Vengefully."
"You will need, says Crabby slowly, carefully, to call the office."
"A skeleton asks another skeleton, ‘Do you want to hear a joke?’ Second skeleton says, ‘Only if it’s humerus.’"
"The biographer cried the first time it failed."
"The sea does not ask permission or wait for instruction. It doesn’t suffer from not knowing what on earth, exactly, it is meant to do."
"I admit to fearing the attack of a sea bear; and my fingers hurt all the time."
"Give me a bucket and give me a bell. Give me a cow with her udders a-swell."
"Frivolous shit, I agree. But it keeps men’s lizard cortexes occupied."
"The goal of therapy is to make you feel like dog shit in the name of insight."
"A billboard on Highway 22 is a stick drawing of a skirt-wearing person with a balloon for a stomach, accompanied by: WON’T STOP ONE, WON’T START ONE. CANADA UPHOLDS U.S. LAW!"
"Out of water, the animal’s bulk is too heavy for its rib cage—the ribs break; the internal organs are crushed."
"The heart of a guinea pig weighs three ounces."
"But what if she’s close, at this very moment, to finding a cure for paralysis?"
"Then, suddenly, she was one of them. Not the gutters, but the clock."
"It’s creepy that you relate so much to lighthouse keepers."
"How can she sleep when she keeps seeing the girl’s face?"
"She cuts a piece from Cotter’s loaf, offers the first bite to the cat."
"Her door is knocking. Malky goes from hiss to howl."
""Gin Percival," says the black haired, "I’m placing you under arrest for medical malpractice.""
"This planet may be choking to death, bleeding from every hole, but still she would choose them, every time."
""Everyone finished?" goes Ro/Miss. "If not, too bad.""
"She drops the car keys on the hall table. Her husband is prostrate on the living-room couch."
""Your shift now," she says. "I’m going for a walk.""
""Actually, it’s not my job to figure out what you’re having for lunch.""
""See you in an hour and fifty-seven minutes," says the wife."
""What are the ingredients of that?" says Bex."
""Santa doesn’t come to holiday assembly," corrects Bex, hell-bent on accuracy."
""I bet Chinese laborers hammered every nail in it," says Pete, "for criminally low wages.""
""So do you," No, I do not." The wife grabs two blocks from John, bangs them into the basket with their fellows."
""Watch the fuck out!" yells the rider, slowing and turning to look at the wife."
""You’re not dressed up," accuses the girl, herself stuffed into a burgundy pinafore and black patent leathers. "It’s Christmas Eve eve!""
""I made popcorn for the reindeer." Bex points to a salad bowl on the lawn."
""Well, Santa doesn’t deliver Hanukkah presents, only Christmas presents.""
""But I want a Hanukkah present," says Bex, fingering a burgundy button."
""Your cunt smells yummy," he said, extending the first syllable of "yummy" into a ghastly warble."
""Not that attachment is always a bad thing," said Jupiter, "but I don’t really see us having that. I think we connect well sexually and intellectually, but not emotionally or spiritually.""
""I’m getting a Klondike bar," said the biographer, rolling off the bed. "Want one?""
""I wanted to help it, but it was already dead.""
""Keep it, eh?" The officer takes a plastic-wrapped cup from her jacket pocket and plunks it on the brown table."
""Water," says the daughter, because it means delay."
""You’ll need to go back where you came from, though. Next bus south gets here in three and a half hours. I will personally ensure that you’re on it. If you don’t already have a return ticket, you can pay the driver.""
""Your photo and driver’s license," says the guy, "will be distributed to every border patrol office in Canada, so don’t even think aboot trying to cross again.""
""Delphine Gray. She’s picking me up from the bus station.""
""I’m placing you under arrest for medical malpractice.""
""You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.""
""The nice thing about pregnancy tests? Results in one minute.""
""I’m going to give you a cup, and you’re going to go down the hall to the bathroom and urinate in the cup.""
""I don’t know what you’re talking about, ma’am.""
""But I can verify my purpose. My friend Delphine?""
""They use out-of-date equipment, don’t disinfect between patients, administer anesthesia without"—the first bell rings—"training.""
""Please don’t tell my parents or Mr. Fivey?""
""I won’t." She wipes her eyes with a parka sleeve. "This is just—This is really, I don’t know—""
""It’s just an embryo, miss. It can’t make an offer on a house, even though it has the legal right to.""
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"The past future Susan MacInnes could have been a battling litigator who brought milestone cases to the higher courts. Edward is battling; he has marched into the mess. The wife can hardly bring herself to read about the case."
"Whatever frees Gin Percival to leave her hair twiggy and wear shapeless sack dresses and smell unwashed—the wife wants that."
"In law school, the wife excelled at trial performance. She used to get rounds of applause. But here in the gallery, watching the judicial choreography, she feels no desire to go back to law school."
"The judge says, 'Prosecution may call its first witness.'"
"The blacksmith harpooned a polar bear. Cook made stew from the liver and heart."
""Mrs. Fivey," says the prosecutor, "please tell us how you came to be acquainted with the accused.""
""Your Honor, I ask that the prosecution refer to Ms. Percival using the less inflammatory term ‘defendant.’""
"Drowning in his robes, the walnut-faced judge says, 'Sustained.'"
""You will answer the question, Mrs. Fivey," says the judge."
""I’m so glad about your verdict," says Mattie Matilda."
""We find the defendant—" "—not guilty on both counts.""
""Objection. Is there a question hidden in there?""
""I am inserting the speculum into your vagina; you will feel a slight pressure.""
""I thought you hated it," she says, "when people say ‘literally.’""
""And what were the results of." "Women of childbearing age.""
""I’m not going to sit here and justify my choices to you," said the wife."
""You mean the therapy? But that’s—" "It’s better this way, anyway.""
""I guess your mom doesn’t know much about dust," says the wife."
""Because it’s not"—no breath in her lungs—"good anymore.""
"The wife reaches for the black earth. Her body yearns, inexplicably, to taste it."
""Don’t be stupid anymore," she once wrote in her notebook, under Immediate action required."
""Can’t you just say ‘Daughter, I’d love to see you’?""
""I’d love to see you. But bear in mind that spring break in Orlando is a hellscape.""
""Listen, honey, you should send Tristan your book. I’ll recommend you personally.""
""The key to happiness is hopelessness," says the meditation teacher."
""I don’t see how gutting fish and washing six kids’ underwear by hand is equal to doing research in the Arctic Circle.""
""If not, we’ll whistle for you," said the boatswain, to groggy laughter."
""Please silence your electronic devices," says the little judge."
""I won’t." She wipes her eyes with a parka sleeve."
""You’re a very ignorant white girl," said Yasmine."
""If you keep squinting like that," says the wife, "your eyes might get stuck.""
""Well, I was referring to people’s misuse and overuse of the term. In this case, I am literally stunned.""
""This is just—This is really, I don’t know—""
""This isn’t 1693!" the biographer wants to yell."