The Sentence Quotes
"Books contain everything worth knowing except what ultimately matters."
"Without a doubt, had the dictionary not arrived, this light word that lay so heavily upon me would have crushed me."
"This is a time to keep our heads crystal clear!"
"Collections of words between cardboard covers."
"The first thing I noticed was every other person stared into a lighted rectangle."
"I live the way a person does who has ceased to dread each day’s ration of time."
"A transition house took me in until eventually I found a place to live in the shadow of I-35."
"Out of a whole lifetime, by God, sometimes the only thing that saves a person is error."
"The language, he said, had a beautiful orthography but no definite articles, no present, no past."
"It is a language that really makes you think."
"The writing in the book was sparse, and arranged in graceful paragraphs."
"It could also be called a family memoir and there was no key to the language."
"I’d like to banter with you, but I’m hungry."
"I mean it’s a great book if you like hairy women."
"Those vegetables no one wanted because you could see they had been prepared for anyone."
"My grandma had a closet of commodities that people traded to her."
"Now at last, with snow sealing the book into the earth, I thought maybe I’d be able to put these events in order."
"I sneaked a glance at her because that wasn’t true."
"I got that covered, Tender Sasquatch," he said, walking to the kitchen.
"It wasn’t just thieving. It was grand larceny plus," he said in his soft rumbly voice.
"It’s about a boy who admires a girl working in a bookstore but he’s too shy to approach her."
"You still like him," I said in a way that made Asema step back.
"I think Laurent’s okay," said Asema with an offhand shrug.
"I felt the prickly sensation of someone staring at me."
"The water would not brush away. It was in the photograph itself."
"Immediately I drove to see him and at his bedside I held his hand."
"The next day, I asked Pen and she said, ‘Oh, you read that?’"
"I think so. Do you think Flora was trying to warn us about the pandemic?"
"People always thought I was a defense attorney. But hell no, I was a prosecutor."
"Spread it like jelly was what Pollux’s grandma used to say."
"‘I’ve asked myself that same question,’ said Pollux."
"‘I don’t want to get shooted, Mama. I am here for you’."
"‘I will always be haunted by what I did, too. Join the club,’ I said."
"You don’t know what you’re saying, my girl. I mean, the police are abolished for the moment. You like what’s happening?"
"‘Maybe the police will stand down or take a knee,’ he said."
"Times like this, people become more human, anyway. Mostly, that’s a good thing."
"‘I’m all roiled up,’ I said. ‘What about you?’"
"And here I am, haunted, ever since last November, and haven’t dared talk to you about it after you dissed me."
"It’s because you say her name. You can’t say her name right out like that. You have to respect the dead."
"I examined him more closely. Maybe after all he was just a chucklehead."
"‘I’ll tell you what,’ I said. ‘I’m not just the bookstore lady, I’m Hetta’s mom.’"
"‘That changes things,’ he said. ‘Now I have an entirely different case to plead.’"
"My soul left my body when I met Hetta. I am totally a hollow person now."
"Everything she did is totally wiped. I made sure of it."
"‘Please be on your way now,’ I said, covering up the quiver in my voice. ‘I will take this under advisement.’"
"‘You didn’t burn it,’ she said. ‘That’s a lie.’"
"Flame follows air. Air’s the food of fire and fire is always hungry."
"Every piece of wood needs a companion to keep it burning."
"Walking is a feat of controlled falling. Like life, I guess."
"I want this now to be the now where we save our place, your place, on earth."
"Ghosts bring elegies and epitaphs, but also signs and wonders."
"Watching and waiting for word of Pollux had turned me inside out."
"I felt like I could see everything—hatred, valor, cruelty, mercy."
"I want to forget this year, but I’m also afraid I won’t remember this year."