Beth > Beth's Quotes

“Come with me into the world and reclaim your independence. You stand to gain so much, and riches are the least of it.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

“This moment, this one position in time, was the happiest I will ever be as long as I am living. I have since felt it was too happy, that men are not meant to have access to this kind of satisfaction; certainly it has tempered every moment of happiness I have experienced since.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

“We can all of us be hurt, and no one is exclusively safe from worry and sadness.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

“Your laughter is like cool water to me," I said. I felt my heart sob at these strange words, and it would not have been hard to summon tears: Strange. " "You are so serious all of a sudden," she told me. "I am not any one thing," I said. (137)”
― Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

“Most people are chained to their own fear and stupidity and haven’t the sense to level a cold eye at just what is wrong with their lives. Most people will continue on, dissatisfied but never attempting to understand why, or how they might change things for the better, and they die with nothing in their hearts but dirt and old, thin blood - weak blood, diluted - and their memories aren’t worth a goddamned thing.”
― Patrick deWitt

“I almost vomited in the boot! I was just about to vomit in the boot! Can you imagine how upset I would have been?”
― Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

“It is true, I thought. I am living a life.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

“I will never be a leader of men, and neither do I want to be one, and neither do I want to be led. I thought: I want to lead only myself.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers

“But who is ever able to apply to her own current love affair a word like "similar"?”
― Joan Wickersham, The News from Spain: Seven Variations on a Love Story

“He found himself in habiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins

“A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.”
“That’s only three.”
Alvis finished his wine. “You have to do disappointment twice.”
― Jess Walter, Beautiful Ruins