Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick Quotes

“I can't dance, remember?" I whispered.
"It's just a tango. It is like sex, except with clothes on." Then, squeezing me closer: "Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot, you do not know how to do that either.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“Human beings are like the screwed-up children of alcoholic parents in that way, picking up the pieces afterward and trying to make up reasons why. You could argue that’s what makes us interesting, and maybe it is to some alien race studying us from a million miles away. From where I sit it just seems pathetic and sad.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“you need to put aside your own selfish motives and consider other people for a change.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“Human beings are like the screwed-up children of alcoholic parents in that way, picking up the pieces afterward and trying to make up reasons why.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“I dreamed about you sometimes.
In my dreams we were walking down Tenth Avenue together in the dark. You hadn’t been shot after all, and we were both all right. I asked you if you were done, and you said yes, it was finished.
In my dreams the streetlights all went off as we walked past them, but I could still see perfectly clearly to the corner. There was heat and light pouring out of you like a lantern, shining down the sidewalk in front of us, filling the intersection with amazing white light. When I reached for your hand you let me keep it there and smiled. You kissed me one more time.
In my dreams I always knew that meant that I was about to wake up. The light spilling out of your face and eyes and skin blazed up higher, and you said you had to go.
You said it had to be this way.
You said you were a goddess of fire.

Life went on. It always did, and that summer was no exception.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“I should have been paying closer attention.”
“You did the best you could ,” she said. “You are not a warrior, Perry, any more than I am a foreign exchange student.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“Why don’t you just tell him what he wants to know?”
“I do not like bullies. And I have never responded well to threats of force.”She paused. “Also, I believe he will kill me anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because that is what he does.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“I’m not helping you kill anybody else. It’s just not happening. I’m done.”“What makes you think you have a choice?”“You know why? I’ll tell you. Because we were just kissing in the street, and deep down, I don’t believe you could actually blow up my house or kill my sister. I just don’t, and she’s probably not even in the house anymore anyway, so if you want to go in there and shoot somebody, fine, but you’re on your own.”Gobi paused, seeming to consider all of this. “What is it that you want to hear from me, Perry? Do you want me to tell you that these are bad people that I am killing tonight? Because they are. They are very bad people. They deserve to die, each and every one of them.”“Nobody deserves to die.”“Oh, really?”“Okay, I mean, maybe people like Hitler and Pol Pot . . . dictators, tyrants, African warlords who starve their people into submission . . . but that guy at the bar wasn’t an evil man.”“How do you know? Because he had drinks with Hemingway?”“I just know.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“You are never going to stop me from achieving my goal, Perry. You ought to know that by now. Do you wish to know the definition of a tragic hero?”“Not particularly.”“A tragic hero is an individual who, with every attempt to restore things to normal, only pushes himself further away from normalcy.”She nodded. “That is you, Perry.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“It takes something special to realize that the preconceived choices and beliefs that you’ve always had aren’t necessarily the best ones for you. It’s not easy.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“I watched the scar starting to form on my knee. No matter how tan I got, it stayed white.
Gradually, the dreams stopped.
By late July, when I still hadn’t heard from Columbia, I assumed that I’d gone from the waitlist to the trash can. Didn’t bother me as much as I’d expected. I was in at Uconn and Trinity. I’d started to wonder if that was what I really wanted after all.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“After what happened with Valerie “Santamaria” Statham, I had expected his stress level to go through the roof, but true to his habit of surprising everybody, he tendered his resignation and just walked away “to pursue other opportunities".”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“The only thing that didn’t seem to belong here was the hospital room itself. It would have been more appropriately suited to someone who was actually fighting for his life, or at least trying to get well. My eyes kept going back to the Post headline running in huge capital letters above the aerial photo of our house, or what had been our house, blasted to pieces and burned to the ground.
Blown away.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“So there was no bomb?”
“Apparently not.”
I turned and looked back at the house, amazed.
Trust me.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“You did all this for her?”
“You are not the only one who loves her.”
“Whoa,”I said. “Who said anything about loving her?”
He glared at me as if I’d insulted his entire family ancestry. A closer look revealed that his eyes were red, his cheeks streaked and shining with long silvery-looking creases that followed the natural etchings of his face. After a second I realized that he was crying.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“Gobija wanted to test you . She likes her men to prove themselves, to know if she can trust them.” He shrugged. “You passed the test.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“Whatever happens, I hope you get everything that you want out of life. You deserve it.”
“Well,”I said, turning away, “thanks.”
“I mean it, Perry. What happened tonight was not easy, but it had to be done. I could not have done it without you.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“Do you always ask so many questions?”
“My guidance counselor says it’s the sign of an intellectually curious mind.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“I’m not jumping.
“Then you will die.”
I nodded to the gaping hole on the forty-seventh floor. “How is this not dying?”
Gobi gave me another nudge toward the edge and for a second I actually felt the vacuum of space itself sucking me outward. For the first time I registered the arrival of something out there, huge and loud, eclipsing the city lights. It was bigger than my father, bigger than college. It was as if the final seconds of my life had been waiting for me here this whole time and now that it had arrived I had no choice about how to meet it.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“She was completely soaked in blood. Her hair swung in red tangles around her shoulders, and her face was a gleaming mask, her eyes like hard diamonds.
I am Death.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“Perry . . .”he started, and I imagined him saying, Perry and I were just having a private conversation about being responsible. I imagined him saying, Perry’s just had another one of his famous dizzy spells. I imagined him saying, Perry seems to be having some trouble discerning fantasy from reality.
Instead, he said: “Perry was asking me about someone called Santamaria. Do you have any idea what that means?”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“Listen to yourself,”Dad said. “You’re about to burst into tears. Stop this nonsense right now.”
“Get your hands off me, I said!"
When his hand reached for me again, I punched him in the mouth.
Dad took a step back, blinking at me and touching his lip, staring at the blood that his only son had somehow drawn. He looked more startled than hurt or even angry. It was the expression of a man who’d just been informed that, effective immediately, up was down and black was white.
Neither of us said a word.
“Two things,”I said. “First, when I get back to school I’m joining the swim team again. Second, if you ever cheat on Mom again and I find out, I’m going to beat the living shit out of you.”
Dad’s high forehead creased with the tiniest of frowns. “Are you still on that?”
“You lied to us.”
“You don’t know the details.”
“I know I can’t trust you,”I said. “What else do I need to know?”
“I don’t know, Perry. I don’t know who you are anymore.”
“Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“I thought about Gobi and her sister and the way it had all come unraveled.
I thought about my dad.
When you’re young, you think your father can do anything. Unless he was this severely abusive person and beat you or got drunk and smashed things, you probably worshiped him. At least most of the guys I knew were like that. They might not have used those exact words, but they all have some cherished memory of something they did with their father, even if it was just a shiny, far-off moment.
I remembered being eight years old and making a Pinewood Derby car for Boy Scouts. Dad had brought out a gleaming red Craftsman toolbox that I had never seen before and helped me carve the car out of a block of wood, and we sat at the kitchen table painting it silver and blue with red flames up the side. I drank Pepsi and he sipped a beer. When we finished, the car didn’t weigh enough, so we put lead weights in the bottom and sprayed lubricant on the wheels until it rolled freely from one side of the table to the other. I won third place, and he said, “I’m proud of you.”
I remembered going fishing with him up in Maine, taking a little motorboat out across the foggy lake until it was too dark to see our bobbers.
I remembered him teaching me how to tie a necktie on the morning of my cousin’s wedding.
I remembered seeing him in the stands at my first junior high swimming tournament, standing next to my mom and cheering.
I remembered waking up very early in the morning and hearing him downstairs making coffee before slipping out to work.
I remembered the first time I ever heard him swear.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“And now,”she said, raising her hand for a cab, “your wish has been granted. You may go home and forget I ever existed.”A taxi swung up to the curb. “Whatever happens next is not on your conscience.”
“Wait,”I said. “Gobi . . .”
She leaned forward, kissing me briefly on the mouth. “Au revoir, Perry.”
“Wait,”I said.
But she didn’t.
She climbed into the taxi.
She didn’t look back.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“If you knew it was there, why didn’t you just take it before now?”
“You would have noticed. You are a smart boy.”
A lie, and we both knew it.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“In the end I was just a stupid rented prince in a stupid prom tuxedo and everything that had happened up until this moment had been a fairy-tale trail of bread crumbs leading through the woods of the night. That I had followed that trail blindly, reacting, responding, somehow thinking that I’d understood what was going on, only made me a bigger idiot than I thought I was before.
“You must realize,”Gobi said. “Tonight was all for my sister. For her, I would have done anything.”She raised the machine pistol back in my direction. “Anything.”
I swallowed. I think I nodded. “What if you’re wrong?”
“I am not wrong.”
“It’s a law office.”
“A paragon of innocence.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“Color had flushed back through her cheeks, and the metallic brightness in her swollen eyes wasn’t entirely rational, but it was alive, watchful.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“New York was still here, but it had changed in our absence. It was long after midnight, and vast walls of fog off the river shimmered along the sidewalks like the ghosts of tenements that had long ago been leveled to make way for the parking garages and office buildings. It was a spectral Manhattan, a double-exposed landscape where the past folded back over on itself in overlapping decades.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“She walked past the TV, the smoky blue light illuminating the sharp planes of her face, and I saw that her eyes had the dazed, insomniac glassiness of a long-term drug user or someone who’d been abused so long that she’d ceased to feel anything at all.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick

“You are very bold,” he said, gripping her hand. “We will see how bold you are when I rip your nails out.”
“Go ahead,” she said. “I feel nothing. I am already dead.”
Now Slavin’s grin became real again. Real and hungry.”
― Joe Schreiber, Au Revoir, Crazy European Chick