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Rick Bass

Rick Bass Quotes

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Famous Rick Bass Quotes

“His beautiful silver hair had turned snow white over the course of just a few days following Chubb's death, and in a way this made him seem younger: made him seem to fit the white caliche landscape even better, and blend in. His skin was turning whiter, too, even after he had been out in the sun, It was beautiful, watching him get old-ancient-now that I had realized he too was going to die. This time I could understand it. It was like watching some graceful diver plunge in slow motion-the slowest-from the top of an improbably high cliff, down to the cool river below.”

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Book:The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness: Three Lyrical Short Stories of Texas, Appalachia, and the Untamed American West
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“I knew that I was losing him, and yet we all had the courage to draw closer, to weave tighter, even all the way into the end. Fred worked in the study, under the glow of yellow light, like an angel-we could see him in there, through the glass doors-while the rest of us sat or lay on the patio under the sky and the stars. Sometimes Grandfather would reach down, searching for my hand, find it, and squeeze it. The last bloodline of my mother, I would think, holding his hand-my last, strongest blood-connection to her-and perhaps he was thinking the same, at those times. Father and Omar intent upon the game. Grandfather and I intent upon eternity.”

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Book:The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness: Three Lyrical Short Stories of Texas, Appalachia, and the Untamed American West
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“I remember one of the last things Mother said to us, one of the very last things. In my mind, it has become the last thing, and maybe it was. She was lying on the cedar frame bed in the back bed-room in the early summer, with the bed moved over right against the window. The window was open to let the breeze and birdsong and sunlight in, the light rushing in through the lace curtains. She had lost a lot of weight and had had a hard time, but was never more beautiful in the way that there can be nothing more beautiful than dignity. "I've seen a lot," she said, and smiled, and it was not an act for us, it was not a thing said for our benefit. She was just saying it, and smiling. She was just brave, was all.”

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Book:The Sky, The Stars, The Wilderness: Three Lyrical Short Stories of Texas, Appalachia, and the Untamed American West
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