Little Altars Everywhere Quotes
"It can wear you to a nub, trying to be a popular person and a good Catholic all at the same time."
"Don’t ever admit you know a thing about cooking or it’ll be used against you in later life."
"Mama says, Those things are manufactured by Old Hag International."
"Whenever I gripe about being cut off just as I was about to earn my Advanced Cooking badge, Mama says, Zip it, kiddo."
"It’s one thing for her to act half-normal in an hour meeting at the parish hall on Wednesday afternoons, but trying to act sane and sober for a whole weekend is a whole different ball of wax."
"It’s too dangerous. You could get lumped in with her, and then maybe even become her, and end up living in a trailer the rest of your life watching Dialing for Dollars."
"I could not believe my ears. Mama and Necie have been best friends since age five."
"She acts out scary stories, like the one about the old-maid sisters in the big house on Evangeline Street right in Thornton who got eaten to death by giant ants."
"The child was born old, though, and it tempts you."
"I wish Sidda would of sensed me, would of smelled me. Would of known I was near, even though she couldn’t see me."
"That song is like a bedtime prayer in the night air, and no one is laughing anymore. It’s not that we’re sad, it’s just that it’s nighttime and we’ve had a full day and we’re getting sleepy, although nobody wants to break away from our circle around the fire."
"When Sidda falls in love with a book, she is positive that she is the very first person in the world to have discovered it."
"Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to."
"I understand. None of this is strange to me. I am her mother, though, and it is my job to teach her that you cannot escape from life. Life is not a book. You can’t just set it down on the coffee table and walk away from it when it gets boring or you get tired."
"I feel light and good. I feel like I’ve just come out of Confession, even though I’ve only been in a drugstore, not a Catholic church."
"When I’m reading, wherever I am, I’m always somewhere else."
"God will not allow us to be overwhelmed by temptation, but with it He will provide a way of escape so that we will be able to endure it."
"The more you can offer up—the more indulgences you can get—the less time your soul will have to suffer in Purgatory."
"Cleanliness might be next to godliness, but honey let me tell you, ugliness will get you nowhere."
"You can’t run away from things, Siddalee. You’ve got to stay in this house where your life is. Don’t you think I want to run off and hide in a bookmobile or join the circus? We all do. But we have responsibilities."
"I have learned to reach out and take what I want for my own self."
"I don’t have to listen to Mama anymore saying: Gimmee Gimmee Gimmee every time I ask her for something."
"I’m not dumb. I always buy me something—like a magazine—and sit at the lunch counter and drink a Coke and act very natural."
"Once I get out of the store, I run around the corner to the covered bus stop where all the colored maids wait."
"I never plan what I’m going to take. I just go browsing and see what catches my eye."
"I am the best! Me and Amy take turns trying it on and practicing runway modeling and turns."
"Mama would snatch it up and sell it for the money and swear it got sucked in the vacuum cleaner."
"I don’t have no parents, I say. They was killed in a car wreck just five-and-a-half months after I was born."
"My brother Bucky told me, I continue. Bucky has told me every single thing he can remember about our Mama."
"I can’t believe yall are being so nice to me, I tell them. No one has ever been this nice to me in my whole entire life."
"Mama, it’s a sin for you to wear that wig Chaney got you because it makes you vain."
"Don’t ever worry bout bein holy, babychild. Just keep your eyes wide open except when you sleep."
"I thought, She’ll die and they’ll say it was my fault. They’ll say: He killed his mother because he wouldn’t hug and kiss her like she wanted."
"But I didn’t want to go near the kids while they were naked. Finally Kane got up and put a washcloth in my hand."
"How in the world I kept on letting myself fall for it, though, I can’t explain."
"People will never understand how sexy those Catholic Youth dances could be."
"I would of killed her, I would of gone all the way."
"She said, My God, before long you’ll be getting hair on this chest."
"The stench of dead fish is getting so bad I can hardly stand it."
"He makes them speak into his 'microphone,' which is actually the car cigarette lighter."
"I hate being a lawyer every minute of the goddamn day."
"You got to try and diversify, so the land you inherited doesn’t get worn out and useless."
"I would of given anything to laugh in my sleep."
"I’ve been smoking and drinking and dyeing my hair since I was twelve years old. And I could do an Oil of Olay commercial if I wanted to—that’s how good I still look."
"God, I love my sunsets more than I do hamburgers! I try not to miss a single one if I can help it."
"Determination is one of the virtues I’ve always envied, believe it or not."
"I always keep those binoculars handy. You never know when something will come up that you need to take a closer look at."
"Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it."
"I used to be so much fun. I lived to laugh, to make other people laugh."
"They can laugh—but between Mass, sunsets, Ouija board, cocktails, and maybe a snippet of a prescription pill, I do fine."
"I’m a born socializer, I adore entertaining."
"I guess I will just always be a sucker for a man in a pickup truck."
"Maybe if I’d been born later, I wouldn’t have even gotten married."
"I thought when Baylor left: Alright now, this is when my life can begin! But it never did begin and I can’t tell you why."
"I’m not brilliant, Mama. I can’t lead you out of the darkness. But I will not close my heart."
"All I have to do is keep walking, with my ears tuned and my eyes wide open."