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I Quotes

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All I Quotes

“I’m not the only kid who grew up this way. Surrounded by people who used to say that rhyme about sticks and stones. As if broken bones hurt more than the names we got called, and we got called them all. So we grew up believing no one would ever fall in love with us. That we’d be lonely forever. That we’d never meet someone to make us feel like the sun was something they built for us in their tool shed. So broken heart strings bled the blues as we tried to empty ourselves so we would feel nothing. Don’t tell me that hurts less than a broken bone.”

“I'm not the only person who carries a lot of assumptions when I read the Bible, and it can be tough to entertain the idea that the Word of God has different perspectives in it. Biblical apologists spend all their time weaving these different viewpoints into a single frame, in an effort that often looks like squids playing Twister: fascinating, appalling, and hard to follow. We've seen what this approach to history can sow: a destructive oversimplification of the Church's past. Americans treat their national narrative in much this way, too. We simplistically teach a single story in our history classrooms, of brave rebels who left cultures of tyranny and heroically crossed the Atlantic to found a nation built on freedom and justice. When we speak of our national sins, such as the genocide committed on Nation Americans or the brutal, longterm economic extraction of wealth from black bodies via slavery and segregation, we seem to dismiss these troubling matters as things that happened in the remote past but that have been resolved today.”

“I’m not too sure what the name of the song was that he was playing when I came in, but whatever it was, he was really stinking it up. He was putting all these dumb, show-offy ripples in the high notes, and a lot of other very tricky stuff that gives me a pain in the ass. You should’ve heard the crowd, though, when he was finished. You would’ve puked. They went mad. They were exactly the same morons that laugh like hyenas in the movies at stuff that isn’t funny. I swear to God, if I were a piano player or an actor or something and all those dopes though I was terrific, I’d hate it. I wouldn’t even want them to clap for me. People always clap for the wrong things. If I were a piano player, I’d play it in the goddam closet. Anyway, when he was finished, and everybody was clapping their heads off, old Ernie turned around on his stool and gave this very phony, humble bow. Like as if he was a helluva humble guy, besides being a terrific piano player. It was very phony—I mean him being such a big snob and all. In a funny way, though, I felt sort of sorry for him when he was finished. I don’t even think he knows any more when he’s playing right or not. It isn’t all his fault. I partly blame all those dopes that clap their heads off—they’d foul up anybody, if you gave them a chance.”

“I'm not tootin' my own horn or anything, but I gotta say the buffet we set up on my dining room table with a blue-checkered cloth and some fresh daisies couldn't have looked more beautiful. Used my large, glazed, tobacco-spit pottery dish for the casserole, and with the crusty, buttered bread crumb topping, it was appetizing enough to be photographed for a food magazine. For the grits, I'd decided to sprinkle extra Parmesan over the top, so they were not only soft and creamy inside but a crispy golden brown outside. The congealed salad I fixed in a glass mold the shape of a pinecone, so when I turned it out on a plain white platter lined with leaves of romaine, the peaches and pecans could be clearly seen suspended in the lemony aspic in an interesting design. This time my hot buttermilk biscuits were as high and fluffy as Mama's, and next to the cloth-lined straw basket I had a big slab of the sweetest local country butter in the state of Texas, which I buy every weekend at the farmers' market out off Eldridge Parkway. We transferred Rosemary's yummy cake to the cut-crystal plate with tiny legs I remember my grandmamma using for birthday parties, and to tell the truth, I wondered how in hell I was gonna get through that lunch without cuttin' myself more than just a sliver of that mouthwatering caramel layer cake.”

“I'm not trying to avoid you,' I replied lamely, but what else could I say? Sorry Brae but when I first came down to meet you I had no idea how hard it was going to be to avoid telling you that I was turning into a grotesque monster and I am worried that there is a good chance I could wake up one morning with a sudden lust for your blood. Somehow I didn't think that would go down particularly well.”

“I'm not trying to tell you," he said, "that only educated and scholarly men are able to contribute something valuable to the world. It's not so. But I do say that educated and scholarly men, if they're brilliant and creative to begin with — which, unfortunately, is rarely the case — tend to leave infinitely more valuable records behind them than men do who are merely brilliant and creative. They tend to express themselves more clearly, and they usually have a passion for following their thoughts through to the end. And — most important — nine times out of ten they have more humility than the unscholarly thinker.”

“I’m not usually into Asian guys,” she blurted. David resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “All right,” he said evenly, picking his drink up. “Fuck you, then.” “Wait!” Her cheeks colored. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I said that.” “Because you’re not into Asian guys, I imagine,” David said, folding his arms.”

“I'm not usually like this. I'm not usually so on edge, so forthright. I'm not usually exhaling death pheromones into the common man's air. I'm not usually foaming at the mouth. But today, I feel the blood flowing with a little more ease. I've felt like this for a while now. Weeks maybe. Months possibly. I believe that my brain is getting more oxygen than normal. Perhaps it's my increase in both raw meat & garlic consumption.”

“I’m not… What’s wrong with them believing?” Bea asked, a note of pleading creeping, uninvited, into her voice. “You do not sell belief, you sell belief-in. Belief in true love, as if everyone were entitled to it. Belief in a simple solution to a complex problem. Belief in one type of person, one type of future.” “No I don’t. I offer people dreams, and hope, and, and, something to organise their lives with,” Bea said, not sure why she was trying to convince him. “I don’t make them into ‘one person’.” “Oh no? Let me recall your doctrine: Kings, Princes and their ilk must marry girls whose only asset is their beauty. Not clever girls, not worthy girls, not girls who could rule. Powerful women, older women – like one day you will become – are nought but wicked creatures, consumed with jealousy and unfit to hold position. No,” he said as Bea began to speak, “I am not finished. Let us turn our attention to the men. As long as the woman is something to be won, it follows only the worthy will prevail. It matters not if they truly love the girl, nor if the man is cruel or arrogant or unfit to tie his own doublet. As long as he has wealth and completes whatever trials are decided fit, he is suitable. For what is stupidity or arrogance when compared against a crown? The good will win, and the wicked perish, and you and your stories decide what makes a person good or wicked. Not life. Not choice. Not even common sense. You.”

“I’m not what you think I am, Aladdin! I will betray you, and I will hurt you, because that is what I am. Why do you think Nardukha rips souls from the living and creates jinnis? Why do you think he sends us into the world? To make your miserable dreams come true? To bring you happiness?” I laugh sourly. “He gives you the thing you want most and uses it to destroy you. Look at yourself. You’re a prince. You have money, power, privilege. The chance to avenge your parents. And you’re miserable.” Aladdin stares at me, and in his eyes is pity. “I’ve been making myself miserable my whole life,” he says softly. “I convinced myself long ago that if I could get revenge on Sulifer, I could finally move on. That I could erase the memory of the day my parents died, when I held their severed heads and watched their blood run in the gutters. But as you say, here I am, a step away from that vengeance—and it has soured on my tongue. I don’t want it anymore.” He sighs and looks up at the sky, as if searching for words among the stars. “You don’t make me miserable, Zahra. I do that to myself, because I’m too weak, too afraid to admit that it isn’t Sulifer I’m angry at—it’s me. My parents were killed because of me. The day before they were executed, I was caught by the guards for stealing an earring, and when they found out who I was, Sulifer had me whipped until I told him where my parents were. And after they were dead, he gave me back the earring as payment for turning my mother and father over to him.” Lowering his gaze to meet mine, he brushes his fingers over the ring in his ear. “I’ve worn it every day since, to remind myself that nothing—nothing—is worth betraying someone you love.”