The Beet Queen Quotes
"It was not that with Karl gone I had no one to protect me, but just the opposite. With no one to protect and look out for, I was weak."
"Our only visitor was Mr. Ober, a tall man with a carefully trimmed black beard. He owned a whole county of Minnesota wheatland."
"You didn’t get this from me," she said at last, letting the hair fall limp and black about my shoulders.
"I should let it die," she mumbled. Her lips were pale, frozen in a dream. "I could bury it out back in the lot, that weedy place."
"That night I fell asleep sitting in a chair beside Mama’s bed, in lamplight, holding the baby in a light wool blanket."
"We swept into the excitement, looked over the grab bags, games of chance, displays of candy and religious wares."
"The great omar, it said, aeronaught extraordinaire. appearing at noon."
"He wasn’t coming back. And yet, because he looked too sad to do any harm to anyone, I was more afraid for Karl and myself."
"We sank down on her bed and cried, wrapped in her quilt, clutching each other."
"I put it in the bodice of my jumper. It did not keep me warm, but even so, when I shut my eyes, the sparkle of the diamond, the patterns of garnets that whirled in the dark air, gave me something."
"I looked down at the baby. His face was round, bruised blue, and his eyelids were swollen almost shut. He looked frail, but when he stirred I put my little finger in his mouth, as I had seen women do to quiet their babies, and his suck was eager."
"For once she had played no favorites between Karl and me, but left us both."
"The air was full of a dull confusing roar that sounded like torrents of rain or hail."
"Each one of us survived the dust bowl, those clouds of blowing grit. Precious topsoil on the whim of the wind! Well gentlemen and ladies, plowing caused that, tilling made it happen, and one way to stop that infernal process is not to till."
"I didn’t want to go back to my half-built empty house yet, but I didn’t want to think too closely about what had happened to me in Minneapolis either."
"Sugar’s got to come from somewhere, and it might as well be here. It could mean a face-lift for Argus!"
"All night long I’ve been grappling with killer robots."
"Put these on. Now you, go out there and tell the customers that their side dishes are on the house and their whole total meal is twenty percent off. That’ll shut them up."
"It’s a lovely sight. A big white fat root just waiting to be made into C12H22O11. That’s sugar. Imagine it, Ron."
"No one out there understood the menu. In case you hadn’t noticed, the damn thing was in French."
"They won’t know what their food is supposed to be; just cook it up the way you would at home."
"We make something out of everything we uncover in the kitchen."
"The customers left satisfied, full, ready to come back."
"Have a drink?" the hostess asks us in a friendly voice.
"You’re not pretty," are the first words he speaks.
"You could never butter those. They’d fall apart."
"Commit me then," he says. "I’m crazy with love."
"Call me up when it’s over," she says, "and we’ll drive out to The Brunch Bar."
"How’s the paring knife holding out?" he asks.
"All flesh is grass," I said, hardly believing my own voice.
"We wake when we die. We are all judged," I said.
"Isn’t it lovely," I said, "the sun’s so mild."
"I’m awfully glad to see you, Sita. It’s been a long time."
"You’re a sight for sore eyes. Should I just stand here or are you going to let me in?"
"It seemed that her hurt was nothing to her, because ours was always worse."
"For Dot was like a wolf ready to descend on the fold. There would be no resisting her."
"Her eyes glistened with unshed tears of shame."
"I am going to play Joseph, father of the Christ child."
"She feared nothing. Not darkness, heights, nor any type of reptile."
"That bathrobe was the kind of thing you lend to a man who comes to visit, but I’d not thought of that for years, or how he looked standing in the doorway."
"The gym was a hive of golden insects buzzing, floating, gathering the honey that filled me."
"I turned my head, slapped my hands to my temples, but it was no use."
"I ran inside, grabbed my keys, and tore hell for leather out of my garage."
"I am a member of three fraternal orders and have a social life that’s, well, I’m in demand Mary."
"I’m not lonely," I said to her. "I am a member of three fraternal orders and have a social life that’s, well, I’m in demand Mary."
"From now on, you get your ham from me, you get it wholesale."
"I don’t know how she does it," I say in a loud voice, thinking she will hear me.
"The Indian burial mounds this town is named for contain the things that each Indian used in their lives."
"The plants, they even uttered something indescribable, like panic."
"I thought of setting the little Chinese umbrella on fire as I served this drink, just to signal its potency."
"Wave and smile," said Celestine. "Those people are looking at you."
"You wave," I told Celestine. "I’m keeping both hands on the wheel."
"He looks stuffed," cried a shrill woman from the curb.
"You think I have a bad attitude," she’d say. "You think I’m just feeling sorry for myself, but listen to this!"
"Queen Wallacette. That’s how I saw it. Never Dot."