Lizzie Bright And The Buckminster Boy Quotes
"He did have to admit that their arrival had something to it."
"Maybe somewhere out West there really were Territories that he could light out to, where being a minister's son wouldn't matter worth a ... well, worth a darn."
"He wasn't sure he should leave Mrs. Cobb asleep and alone, but he was sure he needed some air that hadn't been wrung out inside the house."
"I'm going to die in this room," said Mrs. Cobb.
"Times move on, Preacher," said Sheriff Elwell. "And sometimes when times move on, folks have to move on with them."
"Their bones—our bones—they're all part of this island. We can't leave."
"Then you know," said Reverend Griffin, "that when God gives you a place to live, you don't leave it even if all the armies of the Philistines come down among you."
"Heaven only knew what new sin committed by the minister's son was being announced over the phone."
"Soon, he figured, he wouldn't be able to breathe."
"He supposed he'd better wait for his father."
"Turner wondered if he was free to go upstairs."
"His damp clothes were pretty much clamped against his skin."
"Turner looked up and down the shelves of his father's study."
"You were naked in Mrs. Cobb's kitchen," Turner's father said, slowly and quietly.
"He lay down on his bed, held his baseball glove up to his face, and breathed in its leathery scent."
"He was as polite as an angel all the way through the roast and potatoes."
"And suddenly there was the moon, joking around in the haze."
"Everything faded from gray to grayer to grayer still."
"Turner thought that maybe there were times when Maine would do."
"Turner left his father's study, climbed the stairs to his room, and put on another perfectly white and starched shirt."
"He wondered if it would be a sin to open his window and lean out."
"Turner thought about getting to work on conquering his debased self, but decided that could wait till morning."
"He wasn't up to shining brightly, and he wasn't much inclined to do it anyway."
"Getting through supper was like being dangled on a spiderweb strand over hell."
"But he resolved to avoid the one misstep that might send his soul down to perdition."
"And while it was to be recognized that he was still a young boy, yet he would resolve to conquer his debased self so that he would not be an embarrassment to his father."
"I talk, but not usually to people who hide out and scare someone so that a rock comes down on his face."
"Salt water is fine for that. Salt water will do for everything."
"My granddaddy says it's the stinging that drives out the hurt."
"But sometimes I figure I should just go ahead and swallow it."
"And for a moment, Turner had no doubt that she could."
"Turner, you're not climbing out onto the roof, are you?"
"It was like being in the middle of a swirling universe that could swamp him in a moment but had no desire to."
"He might put out his hand into the maelstrom and become a part of it."
"He rowed until he realized he had missed the point and they were well out into the bay."
"He knew he was in the middle of something much larger than himself, and not just larger in size."
"They looked at each other a long time—two souls rolling on the sea under the silvery moon, peering into each other's eyes."
"If only Lizzie were awake, this would be something out of a dream, something that, had he known he might do it, he would have longed for."
"Turner wasn't sure whether he wanted to sink then and there or maybe row back out into the dark and make their own way in."
"You think an old lady doesn't know anything? I've followed the tide since before your father was born, it's likely I would."
"Lord, save us all, thought Turner when he hefted the volume."
"All I know is that those awful shutters have been painted a Christian color."
"Turner Ernest Buckminster, if I had to sit in this parlor alone with her for one more minute, I'd have thrown something through a window, and it would have been your fault."
"I guess, I guess I just want one thing to stay the same. Just one thing."
"It's a place where people live in long wards, tied to white iron beds. It's a place where there are strong nurses to tell them exactly what to do."
"Books can ignite fires in your mind, because they carry ideas for kindling, and art for matches."
"The thought shivered him—as if he had almost touched a whale."
"You don't have to be a minister's son all the time."
"Whatever would happen if he really did have to leave Malaga? And whatever would happen to Lizzie if he couldn't?"
"But she wasn't feebleminded or insane," she continued. "I knew her, and she wasn't feebleminded or insane."
"Together they watched Mrs. Cobb head to the mountains, and Turner took Lizzie's hand in his without even knowing it."
"It doesn't matter now anyway. I'll have to come up with a whole new set of last words."
"Oh hell, it's warm here. Get me a ginger ale."
"Maybe this was what death was—when no one cared about one dang thing you had cared about."
"You're not supposed to lie about someone's last words."
"Plant some violets here in the spring," she said. "We'll plant them together."
"Turner, look at things straight on, the way they're going to be."
"Then," said Mrs. Buckminster, standing tall and straight, "then the profound Mr. Stonecrop will be profoundly disappointed."
"Go on," she finally told Turner. "Go on and disappoint him."
"Nothing stays the same, does it?" said Lizzie.
"There's lots of ways to knock a man down, and that's one of them."
"He could see sudden fear. He could smell it."
"A man who would send a little girl off to an insane asylum just so he could grab her land, he doesn't even know which way is down."
"What we did down at Malaga wasn't philanthropy, and we're only lying to ourselves if we say it was."
"Saints are hard to live with, Mr. Newton. Usually they end up getting burned."
"The world turns and the world spins, the tide runs in and the tide runs out, and there is nothing in the world more beautiful and more wonderful in all its evolved forms than two souls who look at each other straight on."
"There is nothing more woeful and soul-saddening than when they are parted."
"And there is nothing in the world that rejoices in the touch, and nothing in the world that laments in the losing."