The House Next Door Quotes
"Living well is the best revenge—old Spanish proverb or something."
"We have no children for that reason. We are sufficient."
"I would rather hang around Colquitt’s body than hers."
"It’s never been like that with me before. When a design’s done, it’s done."
"It’s as good a way as any to screw Daddy."
"I’m a good month behind on the Douglas plans, and that should be a piece of cake."
"The house should be its own boss, and they should live by its rules, not the other way around."
"That’s what she really wants to do, isn’t it? That or marry him, and since her mama’s already beat her to that, I guess she’ll have to kill him."
"It’s probably his first house. I guess he wants it to be perfect. I would too—something that spectacular."
"I don’t think he gives a holy shit what they think of it. It’s his house, not theirs."
"It’s just a matter of raking through the debris now."
"I either need two less than I’ve already had or four more."
"He’s not going to break me, not like it did those poor, miserable kids and her daddy. Not like it did Abbott. Uh-uh. No way."
"It was triggered by the son, but it didn’t start there."
"You’re kind to ask, and Buck will be so pleased."
"It’s hard to get back in the world when you’ve been out of it so long."
"Our son was killed in Vietnam. He was our only child."
"I know damned well there was more to her little ‘setback’ than you told me, Col—and of course, it was coming from far away, because it’s overseas, you see."
"I talked to him! I talked to him on the telephone! Not five minutes ago! It rang, and I picked it up, and it made that sound, you know, like when it’s coming from far away—that same sound it’s been making."
"You miss one hundred percent of the shots you don't take."
"If you didn’t know—all that stuff—you’d think she didn’t have a care in the world and had never been sick a day in her life."
"He said that in that moment he believed absolutely and totally in God, and in Christ, and all the rest, everything that went with it, because there simply wasn’t anything else in the world he could do."
"I want you back, baby. That’s all in the world I do want."
"She wasn’t dreaming. Because when I went back over there to turn off the lights and lock her door, I looked in at the TV."
"Our set shrinks from [disclosure]. In distance there is decency."
"I never saw anybody fight so hard to be strong and well."
"But it’s not your fault, and it’s nothing in that house. Things like that don’t happen."
"The thing that waited for Anita was already spreading its shadows across her shoulders."
"She’s been very calm since then of course, with all that gunk in her, and a little—distant. She doesn’t talk much."
"She doesn’t really give a shit about those eerie little gnomes absorbing heritage and tradition," Walter said.
"She’s on pretty powerful medication, and she sleeps a lot, and she’s in therapy a couple of hours a day. Thanks for calling."
"If anyone could help Buck now it would be Virginia."
"The doctor thinks the best way to deal with this delusional thing is just to erase it for a while, let her rest."
"One good thing is that her condition is acute, a concrete reaction to a specific event or a series of them."
"We’ve never stuck our necks out. We’ve never put ourselves or anything we really value on the line."
"He obviously did not want to talk, so we did not press it."
"The words gave me a dreadful, inexplicable wrench."
"I guess he’d never have bothered having one if it wasn’t the proper thing to do."
"Do you think I really am losing my mind, then?"
"The very precise things that, out of all the things in the world, would destroy them."
"He’s strong, though. If she can just begin to show a little improvement, a little response, I think he’ll be all right."
"The doctor thinks she may be able to come home in a week or two."
"You could not be more correct about the Druidwater section being in a state of, shall we say, genteel decay."
"It’s possible that most of it can be done on an outpatient basis."
"I think he feels horribly guilty that he couldn’t prevent all this, but of course that’s foolish, and I’ve told him so."
"She’s so heavily medicated that it’s really hard to tell how she’s doing."
"I think there’s some sort of natural, physical explanation for it, because I will not believe that—that other thing."
"You didn’t think! You didn’t think nine years ago when you—You haven’t been thinking ever since we moved in here—"
"It’s not your fault, Col," he said bleakly, pulling me close and spilling my Scotch. "I agreed with you. I may have blown it, but I guess we had to try. I think I’d do it again if I had to. Whatever his reaction, they deserved to know what’s happened over there."
"Shut up, Norman," Claire hissed. "Just shut up. You’re making an utter ass of yourself, and I’m not going to listen to you bully Susan anymore."
"It’s a whole different subculture," said Walter, looking around.
"No. No, I won’t help you, whatever it is you’re planning to do. I told you that before. I’m not going to help you, I’m not going to talk about it, I’m not going to think about it."
"You’re dead, you’re walking around dead, you’re dead—"
"You want me to come home?" "No. It doesn’t bother me, except that I hate it for everybody here. How is it there?"
"It's not the possibility of a suit... It was the pain. He was just…anguished. God, if we’ve done the wrong thing..."
"If we’ve stopped it from selling, don’t you think it will have been worth it? Any amount of pain, what is that to more death?"
"Time to go over there during the night and burn it down."
"If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen."
"We had not expected primal, hunting joy."
"We were brave to stay. Anybody else would have pulled out if they’d thought what you did."
"I hope we have not waited too long. Already it is reaching out across the rhododendron hedge. Already it has fingered here, and searched, and found."