The Astonishing Color Of After Quotes
"My mother is a bird. This isn’t like some William Faulkner stream-of-consciousness metaphorical crap. My mother. Is literally. A bird."
"In the beginning, that mother-shaped hole was made of blood. Dark and sticky, soaked to the roots of the carpet."
"It happened on Two Point Fives Day. Our day—what had become an annual tradition for me and Axel."
"If I pressed my mouth to his, what would happen? Would it shock me like a dog collar? Would the wall crumble? Would we fuse together?"
"During sex ed, our teachers always made it sound like the guys were the horny ones. But right there on that couch I was certain that some crucial detail about the female body, or at least my body, had been left out."
"In the end, he was the one to take off his glasses and kiss me. But instead of bursting into sparks, my body froze."
"What color?" Axel said quietly. This is the question we always ask to figure out what the other person’s feeling."
"Spilled paint doesn’t involve a knife and a bottle of sleeping pills."
"I was a jellyfish caught up in a tide, forced to go wherever the ocean willed."
"My father must’ve found something because everything on the other side of the door had gone intensely quiet."
"I was no longer a firework. I was a thing frozen deep in the Arctic."
"I couldn’t answer him. Couldn’t tell him I was flashing through the whole goddamn spectrum, including a new dimension of hues I’d never before experienced."
"But we’re talking right now," I said, my insides curling even as the words came out."
"The rain clung to me as I dug through my bag for my key to the house. It was a warm rain, and it looked gray as it came down from the sky."
"I felt guilty. Wasn’t Caro only trying to help?"
"I tried to draw her in my sketchbook, but I couldn’t get the wings right."
"Maybe if I could draw the emptiness, I could control it."
"I tried to imagine suffering so hard that death would be preferable."
"The smart thing would be to try to sleep, get my body on schedule."
"The moment I close my eyes, they flutter. I have to strain to keep them shut."
"We’re not lost. We’re just headed somewhere different."
"You love who you love. There’s no changing that."
"It’s not her, a voice screams from the corner of my mind. My mother is a bird."
"How do you stop it? How do you work the mind free?"
"It’s so rare to get the chance to see family, to reunite like this."
"We try so hard to make these little time capsules."
"If both land faceup, it means the god is laughing at him."
"I’m not a replacement, I’m not someone to be replaced."
"It’s a girl," the midwife announces from the foot of the bed. She’s definitely not speaking English, but I understand her as if she were.
"A daughter," her husband says. "Do we keep this one?"
"What should we call our new daughter?" says the man. "Yuanyang," she says, rocking.
"You must be tired after your trip. Yuanyang, bring the tea out for your uncle!"
"I just hope that her hips get wider, or she won’t be fit to bear a healthy child."
"When the time comes, Yuanyang will make the perfect wife for Ping."
"I lost a world the other day. Has anybody found? You’ll know it by the row of stars Around its forehead bound."
"She had the sour and musty smell of something old. Something once loved but then forgotten."
"You cannot believe it, because I did not write it."
"It’s your birthday. I don’t see why today can’t be an exception."
"She says she was born just outside the Alibung Mountain district. Her parents had no money, and they already had a son. She was just a girl. So they sold her to another family."
"It was a good deal for them—Popo would grow up to be the wife of their son."
"Your new life is down in the city. Go live it, and be happy."
"The music comes to its reluctant end, and my grandmother sighs."
"I’m sick of remembering. Weary of the shadows and storms being tugged to the surface of my mind, mauve spilling into raw umber."
"It was a good experience. There’s one in Upstate New York that looks perfect for you."
"You’re not part of this family. You don’t know anything. Why are you so convinced I need your help?"
"We’ll be driving you there on Sunday. So you should probably start packing."
"I’m okay," she said. Her voice came out in a scratchy whisper.
"He told me about the rock candy Angie had been making, how he kept sneaking in a drop of green food coloring to mess with her."
"Give me something concrete here, Dory. Talk to me."
"It was only our second date—and it was just hilarious to me that she had this random, intense opinion about Emily Dickinson."
"It’s okay to be afraid. But not okay if be afraid means you do nothing. You must not do nothing. That’s not life worth living."
"Because I know what I want. I want us to be together. For starters."
"What do you want? Please. Just be honest. Because I know what I want."
"She can’t have this American boyfriend. She must marry someone Chinese. She must."
"It’s easier knowing that they’re still part of this world, somehow."
"She’s been getting worse again. She needs help."
"If I could see you in a year, I'd wind the months in balls, And put them each in separate drawers, Until their time befalls."
"You should never shine a torch at trees, The light disturb the spirits."
"Sometimes Axel could be so dense it made me want to shake him."
"The only people who succeed in artistic fields are the ones who are incredibly lucky and phenomenally talented."
"It's not good to always be so internally focused."
"You need a stable career. Something that will provide you baseline happiness."
"My mother once told me: The clouds you see at night hold promises."
"They haven’t learned to walk around with a veil over their eyes. Kids always know what they see. That’s why ghosts can’t hide from them."
"You can keep those," says my father. "She won’t notice. She draws so much. Nonstop. I’ll send you more."
"It’s been so many years," my father says. "Enough time for everyone to think about what’s happened. To regret what’s been said."
"Remember how if you did something weird, she would say, ‘Oh! My god!’ like it was two separate phrases?"
"We never should have said that." His voice is gruff, his eyes slightly red. "It was our fault. We only thought it would stop her from leaving."
"Remember when you gave her that first waffle iron for Christmas and she looked so confused when she opened it—"
"You are supposed to marry Chinese man. If you marry that white man, this is no longer your home. You are no longer our daughter."
"She said, ‘It’s for making the cake that looks like a fence?’ And then she called it ‘fence-cake’ for the longest time."
"Anything could have happened, even if you’d been there for all of it. Mom was sick."
"I understand if you need to think about it. And I understand if, after you’re done thinking, you decide it’s not a good idea. I just want you to know—"