Benediction Quotes
"I don’t want you to go yet, she said. She reached across and took his hand. I don’t. There were tears in her eyes. I’m not ready."
"This lady means everything to me in the world."
"He might be wrong. They’re wrong sometimes, she said. They can’t be so sure."
"Don’t you say that to me. Don’t you say such an evil thing."
"An anonymous gift. To somebody somewhere else in the world who needs it without the giver even knowing he’s made the gift."
"He means well, you know that. He was trying to tell us about something that was important to him."
"Be patient, you’ll be gone to college before long."
"I’m so lonely, she said. I had my chance and I lost it."
"I don’t want to be one of those sad old lonely women and not even old but just one who has lost her life and her nerve."
"It always cools off, he said. You can count on that much."
"Not all of it. He had some good things to say too."
"Lots of things turn out to be blessings that got mixed up."
"We got more comfortable. We’re not as active or physical. We don’t even go out as far as the front porch as much as we used to. We sit around and watch TV. TV is what’s become of people."
"You don’t know nothing about rain out here. You haven’t been in Holt long enough. You got to want it to keep on."
"People don’t like to spend too much money on a lawn mower."
"Don’t leave, Daddy. Stay and talk to us. It’s all right. Don’t go, please."
"I didn’t do a goddamn thing to those sons of bitches."
"I’m done. I’m quitting them all. I don’t care."
"It’s for them. They need to have a reason to be with you and this is how they do it."
"You will then have a great reward, and you will be sons of the Most High God."
"I’m going to love you. And again we say, no matter what has gone before, no matter what you’ve done: We are going to love you."
"I don’t have any interest in that. I’m too tired. I feel like somebody slapped me too."
"Somebody needs to paint that, Willa said. Look at it."
"They’re too good for a picnic, Lorraine said."
"We’re grateful for this summer’s day. We’re grateful for this beautiful food."
"It’s the way it goes, it’s how shit happens."
"I’m about like a goddamn baby, he said. It’s a damn nuisance."
"I only ever came to visit her in dreams that were never satisfactory and from which she woke in tears."
"I have a good one at home myself so I know, even if some people might not think so but I’ve known him for fifty years."
"No, he said. He looked out toward the gas pumps. I don’t know if my wife would agree with you."
"It’s no trouble. Just don’t tell nobody else you’re lost."
"All life is moving through some kind of unhappiness, isn’t it."
"I don’t know what to say. Neither one of us did."
"It doesn’t have to be this abrupt, so all-of-a-sudden."
"We had every right to come here. We’re members of the church."
"I just wanted to touch a girl’s soft face again."
"It’s something different from that. I don’t feel shame."
"You’ve been everything to me. All these years. Everything."
"I always did. I approved of you completely. I do today."
"I’m not ready! I thought I was. But I’m not ready! Not yet!"
"After a long time Mary said, I think I’m ready now. Are you, dear?"
"You just say this is a funeral notice for our neighbor Dad Lewis. And be slow when you do this. Don’t do nothing in a hurry. Remember what you’re doing here. This is a solemn occasion."
"Our friend Dad Lewis died this morning. We’re closed until further notice."
"I don’t want you bothering them next door. Those people are grieving. They’ve had a hard thing today."
"It’s not going to be the same without him down there."
"That’s how I feel about it. But I’d take her in, in a minute, if she didn’t have her grandma."
"What’s wrong with him isn’t about geography."
"And in the fall the days turned cold and the leaves dropped off the trees and in the winter the wind blew from the mountains and out on the high plains of Holt County there were overnight storms and three-day blizzards."