The Grass Dancer Quotes

“She had always been different, even when she tried not to be, unable to curb her curiosity which led her to read a great number of books. Her world was constantly expanding until she could no longer fit herself into the culture that was most important to her.”
― Susan Power, The Grass Dancer

“Because I have willed it. And I am not a fairy tale.”
― Susan Power, The Grass Dancer

“A permanent dull ache spread from my belly to my chest. I thought I could feel pinpricks of loneliness in the pads of my fingers, taste it in the back of my mouth. Clara Miller must have been lonely too, longing to be touched. One day as she sat before her metal tub filled to the rim with sweet corn, she reached behind her head and unpinned her silver hair. It tumbled down her back like creamy lace cloak. She hiked her skirts to her knees and I could see she had removed her stockings. Her legs were heavy and milk white, solid as columns. She hiked her skirts higher, until they bunched in her lap.

When I kissed the back of her neck she quivered, like the dying peasant I’d shot and killed a week before. Her silver hair smelled like smoke. Clara and I tangled together like the bale of wire resting beside the unrepaired chicken coop. We were shameless, falling to the ground, wading into the creek, making our way to her bed.”
― Susan Power, The Grass Dancer

“We worked well together because I was quiet, fascinated by her stories of Wisconsin, which, as she told it, was not only the center of the universe but the place where all life began.”
― Susan Power, The Grass Dancer

“You don’t let your feelings run around and jump into someone else’s hand.” Mercury made a fist. “You grab on to your own life and push it around where you want it to go.”

Mercury believed she had her life firmly in place beneath her tongue, and she didn’t spit it out here and there, in bits and pieces diffusing its power. She had even taken a new name, changing it from Anna to Mercury after er granddaughter brought home a copy of the periodic table in the eighth grade and explained it to her: “An element is a substance that can’t be broken down into simpler substances.”

“That’s my story,” Mercury told Charlene. running her thick forefinger across the chart. “I’m all of a piece.”

Charlene opened her mouth to object, to explain that her grandmother could never be one of the chemical elements, assigned an atomic number and measured for atomic weight, but Mercury presided over the kitchen like a force of nature. Charlene’s words were snatched from her mind before they ever made it to her vocal chords. She imagined they were pulled into the woman’s energy field, the electric air surrounding Mercury’s body like her own personal atmosphere.”
― Susan Power, The Grass Dancer

“She took to praying to Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit of her childhood, who had not been a jealous God, she thought, but had waited patiently for her to honor Him again.”
― Susan Power, The Grass Dancer

“A vast mirror hung above his desk, its gilt frame a horror of twisted vines and sharp leaves, angry looking foliage. I thought of it as Eden Lost. The first occasion I was alone in the room I stepped to the glass and touched my reflection with a finger. It was the only time I’d seen myself in a mirror, but the glass was so wavy I could have been staring into water. I was struck by how much my mouth tipped downward in a child’s pout, and I hadn’t realized I watched the world through my eyelashes. I didn’t observe myself for very long. My eyes were the same shape as my mother’s, curved like wings; watching them made me lonesome.”
― Susan Power, The Grass Dancer

“I’m your friend now,” she told Harley as she massaged his neck and shoulders. “I have plenty of soul to spare. I’m rubbing it into you right now, can you tell?” She was kneading his lower back with her knuckles, and Harley nodded because the warmth was spreading. Pumpkin was making her way into his heart, lighting the corners of his empty soul with a red-gold flame.

“You won’t be alone now,” Pumpkin crooned. “I’m part of you, like it or not.”

And Harley could sleep. He could close his eyes without spinning away in darkness. He though that sleeping beside Pumpkin must be better than Frank Pike’s crazy sex adventures, but he would keep her a secret. He would keep her locked in that little chamber she’d reached with her fingers through the very walls of his back.”
― Susan Power, The Grass Dancer

“The wicked have drawn out the sword and bent their bow, to cast down the poor and needy, to slay such as be of upright conversation. Their sword shall enter their own heart, and their bows shall be broken.”
― Mona Susan Power, The Grass Dancer

“Lake Michigan had tempted her. It was a clear emerald green, and she could see to the bottom. The sand looked soft.”
― Susan Power, The Grass Dancer

“Don’t you know you’re beautiful?” Fanny picked up one of my hands as casually as she would a teacup. “Look at this, look at these delicate bones, nails as glossy as porcelain. I can’t stand it.” She dropped my hand and fell back into her chair in one motion. “I think it’s that curl of a smile that finally does them in—partway between a sneer and a laugh. Makes them work to impress you.”
― Susan Power, The Grass Dancer

“When I thought of them together, I saw my sister perched behind Philbert on a bucking Brahma bull. She wasn’t grasping her boyfriend around the waist but kept her seat by clenching her knees. Somewhere in the picture Philbert was tossed to the ground, but Evelyn clung to the animal’s back like a wood tick, dug in, ignoring Philert’s waving arms and shouts for her to let go. The scene was so vivid in my mind I asked Evelyn once if she’d ever ridden a bull.

“I thought about,” she admitted. “But I’m only crazy for a second.”
― Susan Power, The Grass Dancer