The Scent Of Rain And Lightning Quotes
"Happiness was fragile, precious, and suspect."
"Feelings of safety and security got her checking around corners, lifting lids off bins, and parting shower curtains for fear of what might be hiding there, because you just never knew."
"She and Red lay sprawled on their backs like sated puppies who’d just had their bellies scratched for half an hour."
"The secret, she had decided when she was younger, was to try to anticipate it, so as to mitigate the blow."
"It was the kind of weather that her husband called expensive."
"You didn’t show up in church dirty and smelling of horse."
"When they first tumbled into bed, she’d assumed they were both just a couple of horny-toads hungry for sex."
"The irony, to Annabelle, was that her husband’s toughness grew from raising three sons whom he loved with every sinew of his being."
"Because that’s the kind of person Billy is, Annabelle. I’m sorry I didn’t figure that out sooner."
"We’d all be better off without Billy Crosby."
"It was the only way either one of them will ever learn; it’s the only way anybody learns."
"A man gets to have a second chance, doesn’t he?"
"But not a fifth and sixth," she retorted sarcastically.
"It’s hard for a man to support his family when he’s got a suspended driver’s license."
"I might come home tomorrow, or I might have to stay a while longer. I won’t know till I get there."
"But it’ll be a good surprise anyway," he promised her.
"Who could miss it?" Laurie said, with a breezy air as she came back into the kitchen.
"Don’t ever let anybody tell you that happiness has to be earned."
"You’re just an old farmer," she’d say, "always happy to find the cloud in the silver lining."
"It was awful when people you helped and people you loved betrayed you and let you down."
"Everything bad that ever happens to Billy Crosby? You can bet he caused it."
"Seems like if anybody has treated anybody else like shit, it's you who's treated them—"
"I don’t recall you folks wanting to help the defense back then," he said with deep sarcasm.
"Billy Crosby ain’t never going to forgive or forget."
"I’m never going to forgive or forget, either," she said, staring straight at Billy Crosby's son.
"It’s clear to me from the looks on your faces that you’d all like to kill Billy Crosby, so we’d better all get alibis."
"How dare that man speak to her?" Annabelle looked frightened and worried. "How dare he say a single word to our Jody?"
"But what he lacked in handsome, he more than made up for in decent."
"Was he the nicest person you ever knew?" "I think he was."
"A person could be not-guilty without being innocent."
"Stealing a dime was as bad as stealing a dollar."
"He’s a physically tough man who runs headlong into trouble."
"I prayed that my parents would find it in their hearts to forgive me."
"I can’t bear the thought of never loving you."
"In his place, how would I feel? What would I do?"
"My life seemed to have come equipped with its own lightning rod that deflected bad luck away from her."
"How could her own husband accuse her of stealing?"
"It’s such a little bit of money! Who cares? Why are you making such a big deal of it?"
"If I had to choose between the respect of my parents or the love of my wife, I would choose my wife."
"She was doing the work that Hugh-Jay was supposed to be doing but had no aptitude for."
"I felt anguished. Lose his wife’s affection, or lose his father’s respect?"
"I respected my father above all other men, but my love for my baby daughter wouldn’t let me brand her mother a thief."
"She always had wanted him in this way and this way only, in those years when Meryl Tapper was still slim, and athletic, good-looking and sexy."
"Sex was supposed to be fun, it wasn’t supposed to be church."
"She played as if she were trying to get away by twisting and turning beneath him, and that turned him on more."
"In a moment that changed her, Laurie felt grateful to have been flung onto her back, her poor ruined back, so that she might see this astonishing beauty."
"It wasn’t lifeless at all! The eighty-foot rock formations that rose beside, and above, and all around her looked like living creatures now, protectively watching over her with their sharp, cold faces."
"He’s probably the only man in Kansas who’s crazy for the exact same reasons you are. It’s either a match made in heaven or in hell, but it sounds like a match to me."
"If the boy doesn’t like your fried chicken, Mom, then he’s not fit for this family."