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Quote by Sara Gruen

Work

The Sara Gruen Collection: Water for Elephants - At the Water's Edge - Ape House

The collection features 'Water for Elephants,' a tale set during the Great Depression that follows a young man who becomes an animal trainer in a traveling circus. 'At the Water's Edge' is set during World War II and revolves around a wealthy family's mysterious past. 'Ape House' explores the relationship between humans and chimpanzees in a modern-day research facility. more

Author

Sara Gruen
Sara Gruen

Sara Gruen is an American author born in Canada in 1969. Her works are known for their themes of animal emotions and intricate character development, with notable titles including 'Water for Elephants' and 'Fly Away Home'. Her books have been highly acclaimed by readers and have won numerous literary awards. more

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“The baby explodes into an unknown world that is only knowable through some kind of a story – of course that is how we all live, it’s the narrative of our lives, but adoption drops you into the story after it has started. It’s like reading a book with the first few pages missing. It’s like arriving after curtain up. The feeling that something is missing never, ever leaves you – and it can’t, and it shouldn’t, because something is missing.”

“Love." She looked at me with those blue eyes. "Isn't it astonishing how confused and complicated such a small,simple word is? It attracts so many other things, doesn't it, that stick to it like barnacles on rock...fear, guilt. Need. You can't even see the rock anymore. I imagine love in its purest form is a rare thing.”

“I believe in fiction and the power of stories because that way we speak in tongues. We are not silenced. All of us, when in deep trauma, find we hesitate, we stammer; there are long pauses in our speech. The thing is stuck. We get our language back through the language of others. We can turn to the poem. We can open the book. Somebody has been there for us and deep-dived the words.”

“Her own body was such a familiar and unremarkable thing to her that she was puzzled by the convulsive ecstasy men could take from it, by the intense and amusing need they had merely to touch it, to reach out urgently and press it, squeeze it, pinch it, rub it. She did not understand Yossarian's lust; but she was willing to take is word for it.”