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The Kindness of Terrible People and Other Stories

Book by Stephanie Dupal · 5 quotes · Short Story Collection, Short Story, Women S Fiction

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The Kindness of Terrible People and Other Stories Quotes

“Then there's nothing left but the long quiet. Far in the distance, haze rises from the desert and dances ghostly against the sun. Even when things are hazy and out of reach, we find comfort in the stories we tell each other to keep our hearts beating. There is beauty in that, at least.”

“He cradles the egg like treasure and shows me the catalog of the Viking bearded seal figurines. Before this series, Kinder launched the Russian bears, the Canadian caribou, the French poodles—I remember a mime, a pastry chef, and a can-can dancer with a jaunty red beret—the Majorcan hedgehogs, and the Egyptian camels, painted to resemble the gods of hieroglyphs. Ridiculous trinkets forming an international circus of moronic animals.”

“On the street, cars hurtled toward their destinations in a symphony of sound. Trees lined the pavement in a powerful show of survival: here they stood in this urban landscape, long-limbed and capable. And green, so green, sunlight pierced through their leaves and marked the concrete with dappled grays. I made my way home to my family, one among a million travelers crossing the city’s great canvas in quick strokes. Everywhere there were colors by the thousands—tint upon tint, shade after shade—of everything the spectrum of beauty satisfied. Everywhere, there were signs of the renewal and restoration of life.”

“In Gretons-sur-Mer, the villagers, through the auspicious care of the Bouletiers, returned to their human form. Sometimes they wondered, looking at their reflection on the surface of water or on the rounded shine of a pewter pitcher, if a part of them had remained beastly, if the whiskers atop their lips had been there before. They wondered, stroking the spot, and mused on their transformation, to that time of war when the fabric of life was briefly woven with magic.”