Gryphon Quotes

“Savor the imminent weirdness of the day.”
― Charles Baxter, Gryphon: New and Selected Stories

“You fall in love with someone not because he's nice to you or can read your mind but because, when he kisses you, your knees weaken, or because you can't stop looking at his skin or at the way his legs, inside his jeans, shape the fabric.”
― Charles Baxter, Gryphon: New and Selected Stories

“Every day became an epic of endurance.”
― Charles Baxter, Gryphon: New and Selected Stories

“I felt as though I were in the presence of one of God's more complicated pranks.”
― Charles Baxter, Gryphon: New and Selected Stories

“Experience and disappointments had made us methodical.”
― Charles Baxter, Gryphon: New and Selected Stories

“Their imaginations put the scene on a film loop. Guiltily, they watched it until their mental screens began to wash the rest of the past away.”
― Charles Baxter, Gryphon: New and Selected Stories

“Against the odds, they refuse to succeed.”
― Charles Baxter, Gryphon: New and Selected Stories

“IN THE SMALL Ohio town where I grew up, many homes had parlors that contained pianos, sideboards, and sofas, heavy objects signifying gentility. These pianos were rarely tuned. They went flat in summer around the Fourth of July and sharp in winter at Christmas. Ours was a Story and Clark. On its music stand were copies of Stephen Foster and Ethelbert Nevin favorites, along with one Chopin prelude that my mother would practice for twenty minutes every three years. She had no patience, but since she thought Ohio—all of it, every scrap—made sense, she was happy and did not need to practice anything. Happiness is not infectious, but somehow her happiness infected my father, a pharmacist, and then spread through the rest of the household. My whole family was obstinately cheerful. I think of my two sisters, my brother, and my parents as having artificial, pasted-on smiles, like circus clowns. They apparently thought cheer and good Christian words were universals, respected everywhere. The pianos were part of this cheer. They played for celebrations and moments of pleasant pain. Or rather, someone played them, but not too well, since excellent playing would have been faintly antisocial. “Chopin,” my mother said, shaking her head as she stumbled through the prelude. “Why is he famous?”
― Charles Baxter, Gryphon: New and Selected Stories

“To his great relief she recommended no course of action. She listened. She didn't believe in giving advice, even when asked.”
― Charles Baxter, Gryphon: New and Selected Stories