Marie-Helene > Marie-Helene's Quotes

“Music fills the space between them. Mark wants to take the pill that keeps him awake, but not in front of his daughter. Instead, he flirts. "There's a lot of trouble with a brown-eyed handsome man. In your travels have you found this to be true?"
This is Madeleine's favorite game. His role is to ask silly questions and hers is to answer as if he is serious, neither one acknowledging the other conversation that goes on wordlessly around them, in which some other, better version of themselves say: Isn't it nice to be father and daughter?”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“It is dark, dark seven A.M. on Christmas Eve Eve.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“The heavy thud of the front door closing. He leaves the phone on the desk. The hallway is dark and long and empty. "Louisa?" His voice echoes against the walls as if he is asking himself her name.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“Bob Dylan never has his own cigarettes. I thought this was charming at first.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses

“I'm a minor character in my own life.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“I was fond of him immediately, in the way we feel kinship to those who compliment us.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino

“We stand at the doors and look out over the yard. Hundreds of deer gaze back at us. Deer and deer and deer and deer and deer. Their blue chests heave in the dark. Their trembling cotton throats.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses

“The way that woman walked, like she was paying the sidewalk a favor.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“If there were a race among all artists to the human heart, my money would be on music to win. It knows a shortcut.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“Madeleine stares through the window into the courtyard. On most days she feels something staring back: a God or a mother-shaped benevolent force. Today, nothing reciprocates. The streamers on the chained bicycles lift in the indifferent breeze. She is alone in old stockings she's repaired twice but still run. Life will be nothing but errands and gray nights.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“Gus doesn’t belong in this world. He was born with a Hollywood chin, a butter touch, and an ear that can hear rhythms tapped out from Neptune. In another life he would have been drumming in Johnny Carson’s band, drinking water out of a mug. But in this one he has a disease and he can’t say no to shysters like Charlie, who uses his wife and kid to cheat on Gus’s lousy, glowing heart.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“Her father is fastened to his room, with his records and his drugs and his quiet. She crawls under her covers. It is her fault for triggering one of his spells. Normally she can tightrope through his moods. At least it had been brief. Most girls do not have to deal with a father like hers. They would be afraid of the way she lives, lawless in a roachy apartment. They would be scared of his fits. Madeleine would be scared too, she thinks, falling asleep. If she had only experienced finished basements and dads who acted like dads. But Madeleine loves her father, and how can you be scared of someone you love?”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“I am bad at asking for help. When you ask a human being for help, there is a chance they will say later, Remember when you asked for help? Can I have five dollars? That goes for medicine, too. I don't like asking help from pills in a bottle. I don't want to be woken up at night by a tab of aspirin asking to borrow five dollars.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses

“He's dead now and by dead I mean dating a stripper.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses

“That can be the cruelest part of happiness--its tendency to disguise itself as boredom.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses

“They hurt me, these small, brutal kindnesses.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses

“But Madeline loves her father and how can you be scared of someone you love?”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“What am I supposed to do," she says. "Wait?" She wants him to say, Yes, wait. I will be home as soon as I run this one errand. Ben perceives disgust in her tone. Why would anyone wait for him? A boy who didn't know how to be a prom date, a man who knows what he needs, but too late.
He releases her arm. His voice is professional with sorrow. "You certainly couldn't do that." He means because she is precious. Sarina hears that she is snotty and unkind. He means because he is not that lucky; she hears: he is bored.
No one says "I want you to wait," and no one says "I'll wait.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“Saying good-bye to Ben is Sarina's least favorite activity. So sad the number of times she's had to do it. Ball games, recitals, the homes of friends, rented shore houses, through car windows after dropping off some forgotten camera to Annie. Goodbye. See you later. Nice seeing you. She has mastered it: A dismissive peck on the cheek. A hug like an afterthought. Telling herself, Do not watch him walk away. Watching him walk away. Watching him drive away. Watching him descend the stairs to the subway. How many times have they said goodbye to each other? Already tonight, twice.
He interrupts her before she can get the second goodbye out.
"How would you feel," he says, "about missing your train?"
Once at the beach, Sarina watched a crane bathing in a gully at dusk. It used its wings to funnel the water over its back, then shook out the excess in a firework of droplets. After several minutes it took off, arcing out over the fretless sea. That felt like this.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“Marcel was from Louisiana, so for four years Emily had been southern by association. She insisted on Lynchburg Lemonades. She scheduled interviews around the Gators. She championed gentility. Anyone at a dinner party who thought they could tell a joke making fun of the region encountered a faceful of Emily, quick and ferocious as a convert, as a woman who loved a man.
Emily now had no claim to the South. The region and its interests would proceed without her.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses

“A monkey could do my job better and with more hilarious results.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses

“When you're alone, you are in the right place to watch sadness approach like storm clouds over an open field. You can sit in a chair and get ready for it. As it moves through you, you can reach out your hands and feel all the edges. When it passes and you can drink coffee again you even miss it because it has been loyal to you like a boyfriend.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses

“You can’t say you know a city unless you know three ways to everywhere.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“In the jaundiced light of a streetlamp, Sarina realizes why people have children: to see the face of the one they love at the ages they’ve missed...”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“If you are anything other than humbled in the presence of love, you are not in the presence of love.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“Good morning, the city says. Fuck you.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“That’s a drummer’s love story. If you want a prettier one, you’ll be waiting forever. If you could separate your body into four distinct rhythms, you’d be cracked too”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“Once in a while, I smell Clive on my skin and it stops my day. It's a train crossing; I wait to pass. Eventually the lights stop flashing, the barriers lift. I keep moving.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses

“We carry our ancestors in our names and sometimes we carry our ancestors through the sliding doors of emergency rooms and either way they are heavy, man, either way we can't escape.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

“Seeing his face after months was as immediate as a pointed gun.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, Safe as Houses