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S Quotes

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All S Quotes

“She was standing at the door, and the sheer visual delight, the sharp ache of happiness, something like the sight of fleeing moments of beauty that are so much a part of the life’s vanishing act, with its total absence of forever, filled him as usual with that greed, that tyrannical urge to seize, to keep and preserve and never lose again, which is perhaps how twenty thousand years ago the first image of an antelope came to be painted by an artist upon a rock. Then she put her blouse on and Time, the old robber baron, went by, carrying his loots away.”

“She was staring at you.’’ ‘‘What can I say? Irresistible.’’ ‘‘Shane, it’s not funny. I just—you should be careful.’’ ‘‘Always am.’’ Which was an absolute lie. Shane’s eyes fixed on hers, and she felt a burst of heat inside that crept up to burn in her cheeks. He smiled slowly. ‘‘Jealous?’’ ‘‘Maybe.’’ ‘‘No reason. I like my ladies with a pulse.”

“She was starting to hate the idea of marriage. She didn’t ever want to get married. Why? For what? From what she’d seen, it just made everyone miserable. Particularly women. They lost everything when they got married—most importantly, their independence. There was supposedly this new generation of Muslim men that were fine recognizing a woman’s right to independence— for the price of taking on a man’s responsibility. Cheap, right? As long as she was willing to work full time, use her money to pay bills, take care of all household chores, spoil her husband, watch the kids, care for the kids, cook for the family, grocery shop, maintain the entire house, spend time with everyone, carefully budget expenses, she could go wherever she wanted. But just when, exactly, was she supposed to have the time?”

“She was startled. "But you're human, aren't you?" In some ways yes. But in other ways I'm a stranger to your kind. I have a friend who calls you plucked angels, and he claims you're a total waste of spirit. Do you ever think like that?" Of course, in honest moments. But I can be just as honest and think that we aren't a spiritual waste but a spiritual potential waiting to grow.”

“She was still hugging the cat. "Poor slob," she said, tickling his head, "poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like." She smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said. [...] It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a name.”

“She was still loping around on all fours, her fists blue-white from the strain. As if she were holding a secret tight to the ground. Sister Maria de la Guardia would sigh every time she saw her. "Caramba!" She'd sit down with Mirabella and pry her fingers apart. "You see?" she'd say softly, again and again. "What are you holding on to? Nothing, little one. Nothing.”

“She was still not at ease with the idea that she was now important enough to have people as accessories. Nor was she comfortable with the idea of these people as gatekeepers with access to the details of their personal lives. Whenever she felt herself shrinking under the indifferent glare of the staff that surrounded her, as she did in this instance, she straightened her back and lifted her chin in the way that Chiedza, her trusted advisor-friend, had instructed her to do.”

“She was still under the spell of her infatuation. She had tried to forget him, realizing the inutility of remembering. But the thought of him was like an obsession, ever pressing itself upon her. It was not that she dwelt upon details of their acquaintance, or recalled in any special or peculiar way his personality; it was his being, his existence, which dominated her thought, fading sometimes as if it would melt into the mist of the forgotten, reviving again with an intensity which filled her with an incomprehensible longing.”

“She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight.”

“She was such a scrawny, ugly little thing, and anyway she was sick; her crystalline blue eyes were watery, and she complained a lot. Father tried to point out that 'all' Bernice's Siamese complained a lot, and they all looked ugly to the untrained eye: skinny as snakes, with peevish, triangular faces, ears all out of proportion. Vivian thought J.C. just needed to fill out a bit. She took the cat to the kitchen and let her perch on the kitchen stool, fed her little tidbits as she went about her work. J.C. developed an eclectic and discriminating palate over the next few weeks. She liked goat cheese but not feta, she accepted slivers of toasted garlic but not raw, she ate ratatouille and minced coq au vin and went ecstatic over chicken in aspic.”