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Tilt

Book by Emma Pattee · 29 quotes · Motherhood, Despair, Fate

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Tilt Quotes

“I'm sad. Pressed down by sorrow. I'm angry. Pissed at God, if there is one, and the way things are. I'm scared. Confused by the whys. Why are we here? Is there, really, some intelligent design? Why do we cry for someone who leaves us if there's some Grand Pearly Gate in the sky? Why worry about how we build our lives if the ultimate ending for all is death, a single breath away? (358)”

“He loves hot dogs—obsessively loves hot dogs. He'd eat a hot dog every day for the rest of his life if he could. Isn't it funny that this is the kind of information that makes a person unique? That they love to eat a stick of meat in a round bed of bread. Absurd. When you grow up, Bean, maybe you will love trains. Or brussels sprouts. And we will all marvel over this thing that makes you you.”

“Is this life? The thing we were all seeking since those afternoons after school, when we saw Friends on TV and dreamed that one day we would be all grown up and get coffee with friends and hang out on a couch in an apartment. Sometimes it seems like your father and I have spent not just years doing this but eons. An infinite amount of time spent unloading the dishwasher and waiting in line at the grocery store.”

“Something like adrenaline starts beating its slow drum inside me. Maybe you'll know this feeling one day—there's nothing a woman hates more than walking by herself, and hearing a strange noise, or feeling the presence of an "other," that horrible sickness all over my body, ground shifting, women are so unsafe, all of us always pretending to be safe, always avoiding any reminder that our safety is upheld only as long as the person closest to us keeps deciding not to kill us.”

“Dad might think being gay is a sin, but he sees it more as a sign of human weakness, not Satanic interference. At least, I don't think he does. I figure it's between me and the Big Guy upstairs. We used to go to church a lot, and I never heard on word to make me think I'm some sort of adbomination. If God is in fact responsible for creating me, He made me just how He wants me. And if He loved every bit of his handiwork, He loves me. And if all that is nothing more than mythology, what harm is there in believing the stories anyway? When I pray- or meditate, or consider the universe, whatever you want to call it- I find comfort. Self-acceptance. Understanding, at least in some world.”

“Why, how, did my mother start making her birds? I don't know; I never asked. I suppose it was like growing up with a mother who goes to church on Sundays or gets her hair done every two weeks. Why? How? But the child whose mother goes to church on Sundays does not ask those questions, because to that child, it is a perfectly normal thing to do, to go sit on hard benches in a roomful of people discussing the specifics of a fairy tale (yes, I've shown my hand here, I suppose, but sooner or later you and I will have to have this discussion) and then having cookies and coffee afterward and chatting about the weather.”

“Yes, I believe that there is life after death. Any physicist will tell you that energy doesn't die, it only changes forms. What makes you you, Alex? That hunk of gray matter inside your skull? No way. You- all of us- have a life force. Energy. Some people call it a soul. Whatever you call it, it makes you you. And when your body dies, your energy will remain. I can't say for sure what heaven is. But I have faith that it's a special place, and that you will be welcome there.”