Deborah Reed > Quotes

“Happiness, not in another place but this place . . . not for another hour, but this hour.”
― Deborah Reed, Olivay

“Knowing how to make a life mean something, to wring out its worth when it was right there in one’s hands instead of just wishing about it afterward, or imagining how it could have been, or should have been, different.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“But not every kind of love called for action. Some demanded one stay put, allowing for nothing more than it to be exactly as it was.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“She thought of her father swinging her sister, her mother capturing the moment for all time. Elin had captured it, too, understanding, even then, that the moment had meant something, that the world could change in an instant, and she needed to be mindful of where she was, to live with intention, to always recognize the deliberateness of love.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“You tried to teach me this years ago, how getting to the good stuff required a free fall into the unknown, that that was where the real joy would always be waiting. The prize was at the bottom, gambles and perils and hazards be damned.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“She’d married a man with the intention of spending her life with him, he for her and she for him, a kind and loving buffer against the harsh edges of the world, a man so different from herself, their life together so unlike any she had known, that she could not help but forget all about the person she used to be. But how strange that all sounded now. And yet how perfectly correct it rang out when they began, how right the promise declared itself, a win-win deal cut and shaken upon, and everything that followed, everything built up and out around them was evidence of their agreement. And now? So soon, the marriage was already feeling past. And looking back she had no way of knowing if Rudi had ever actually loved her, or if he loved her still. What had he seen when he looked at her all those years? Had she ever allowed herself to be seen?”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“understanding, even then, that the moment had meant something, that the world could change in an instant, and she needed to be mindful of where she was, to live with intention, to always recognize the deliberateness of love.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“It was as much a memorial to them both as it was a reminder that loving someone, loving anyone, even those long gone, was of consequence, and not loving them was of consequence, too.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“packet of new toothbrushes because there’s the familiar sound of him brushing his teeth. He taps it on the side of the porcelain when he’s finished and she”
― Deborah Reed, Carry Yourself Back to Me

“Old habits die hard, emotional triggers like stubborn weeds, profoundly twisted and entrenched, rising to the surface. Elin”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“She’d been waiting for something to happen, waiting since the day they married, since she’d branded love like one of her accounts, slapped it with an identity, an easily recognizable logo. She’d been waiting for someone to come along and break it open, let the yolk ooze in directions unknown because that mess was where she was, all over the place. That mess was who she was, neither here nor there, and she’d been waiting for someone to free her from the neatly assigned category where she lived so tidily, dry as an egg shell, as Rudi’s wife, waiting so she wouldn’t have to bust it open by herself.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“The woman’s accent had a tinge of Florida sorority.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“Unlike the days where he felt he could not rise from his bed if another human being did not lay hands on him, if a voice did not whisper one small word into his ear, even to ask for a fork, a book off a shelf, unlike that, this new, godforsaken battering of hurt called for motion. Through the house and out the back door he went”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“Take it in doses along the way, or get it all at once, but get it, you will. And what a grand finale it shall be.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“loving someone, loving anyone, even those long gone, was of consequence, and not loving them was of consequence, too.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“The world said, Take it in doses along the way, or get it all at once, but get it, you will. And what a grand finale it shall be.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“Her mother’s insistence that the whole of life could be contained in a song—listen to the rise and fall, the violence and forgiveness, the suspense in tension, not knowing how it could end, and therein lies the beauty,”
― Deborah Reed, Olivay

“It was all laid out before her now, the whole messy past, and she’d done everything in her power to put things right. No doubt she’d come up short, and that, she believed, was what it meant to be alive. The absence of answers and perfection allowed for the wonder, mistakes for tripping trap doors to the glimmering unforeseen.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“If she hadn’t been robbed of her ability to speak she would have told him in that moment that she loved him more than all their days put together, loved him with a new kind of love, moonshine and lifeblood, pure and wholehearted, so intoxicating it made her weak.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“AND SLOWLY I WOULD RISE AND DRESS, FEARING THE CHRONIC ANGERS OF THAT HOUSE. —ROBERT HAYDEN”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“Old habits die hard, emotional triggers like stubborn weeds, profoundly twisted and entrenched, rising to the surface.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“They didn’t, and now the room felt strangely empty without their grandmother rattling in the corners. They had been here before. Averlee couldn’t place it exactly, but the mix of cigarettes and coffee, the rose-scented air freshener was familiar. The cookie jar shaped like a clock on the kitchen counter. She had seen it, tasted lemon wafers from inside it. They had been here before they had enough words to remember it by. And now she’d left them alone. But it wasn’t her grandmother Averlee missed. It was the braided rug in her bedroom at home, smelling like the cherry sucker Quincy broke between her teeth and let fall like slivers of red glass between the seams. Her grandmother’s voice carried down the hall. “Hospital… Snake… These girls.” Averlee liked to flop onto her belly and read on that rug. She”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“And I don’t know what’s worse, this is the God’s honest truth, I don’t know what’s worse. A final good-bye at the hands of the Lord, or a lifetime spent wondering if he’s ever coming back.”
― Deborah Reed, Carry Yourself Back to Me

“it was a reminder that loving someone, loving anyone, even those long gone, was of consequence, and not loving them was of consequence, too.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“behind their legs. Quincy leaned in for a look. Their”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“Well, if you’re patient enough anything’s bound to come around sooner or later.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“the most beautiful things in the world were the most useless. Peacocks and lilies, for instance.”
― Deborah Reed, Olivay

“It confirmed what she’d believed all along, that she didn’t belong to those people, and never had. Instead of connecting Elin with her past, Rudi had marveled at the way she’d pulled herself out of it like a diamond from the rough.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire

“It was as if she believed the world was designed to slight her and she had no choice but to lunge and sucker punch a kidney in order to seize what she considered hers.”
― Deborah Reed, Things We Set on Fire