A Girl Named Zippy Quotes

“I later discovered that in order to be a good athlete one must care intensely what is happening with a ball, even if one doesn't have possession of it. This was ultimately my failure: my inability to work up a passion for the location of balls.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“That cat doesn't have a lick of sense,' I said, sighing.

Well, honey, he's not right in the head,' Dad said, flipping his cigarette into the front yard.

I glared at him. 'And just what do you mean by that?'

Dad counted on his fingers. 'He's cross-eyed; he jumps out of trees after birds and then doesn't land on his feet; he sleeps with his head smashed up against the wall, and the tip of his tail is crooked.'

Oh yeah? Well, how about this: he once got locked in a basement by evil Petey Scroggs in the middle of January and survived on snow and little frozen mice. When I'm cold at night he sleeps right on my face. Of that whole litter of kittens he came out of he's the only one left. One of his brothers didn't even have a butthole.'

I stand corrected. PeeDink is a survivor.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“What kind of good deeds? Like Girl Scouts? Because I got kicked out of Brownies and they won't give me another chance to keep my clothes on at camp.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“But I think that what you'll discover more and more as you get older is that most people aren't thinking about you at all.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“...she waited until she and my grandfather Anthel were just home from their honeymoon, and then sat him down and told him this: "Honey, I know you like to take a drink, and that's all right, but be forewarned that I ain't your maid and I ain't your punching bag, and if you ever raise your hand to me you'd best kill me. Because otherwise I'll wait until you're asleep; sew you into the bed; and beat you to death with a frying pan." Until he died, I am told, my grandfather was a gentle man.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“They did a lot of cleaning in their house, which I considered to be a sign of immoral parenting. The job of parents, as I saw it, was to watch television and step into a child's life only when absolutely necessary, like in the event of a tornado or a potential kidnapping.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“I respect every way in which you are a troublemaker, now get up and do what your mother says.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“Decoupage hit Mooreland pretty hard...”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“My mother was good at reading books, making cinnamon biscuits, and coloring in a coloring book. Also she was a good eater of popcorn and knitter of sweaters with my initials right in them. She could sit really still. She knew how to believe in God and sing really loudly. When she sneezed our whole house rocked. My father was a great smoker and driver of vehicles..He could hold a full coffee cup while driving and never spill a drop, even going over bumps. He lost his temper faster than anyone.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“Contrary to popular opinion, my dad was not a lazy man. He was not lazy at all, for instance, when it came to Going Places In His Truck. He was also very industrious about Preparing To Go Camping. And if something really interested him, he would work on it all day.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small In Mooreland, Indiana

“I figure heaven will be a scratch-and-sniff sort of place, and one of my first requests will be the Driftwood in its prime, while it was filled with our life. And later I will ask for the smell of my dad's truck, which was a combination of basic truck (nearly universal), plus his cologne (Old Spice), unfiltered Lucky Strikes, and when I was very lucky, leaded gasoline. If I could have gotten my nose close enough I would have inhaled leaded gasoline until I was retarded. The tendency seemed to run in my family; as a boy my uncle Crandall had an ongoing relationship with a gas can he kept in the barn. Later he married and divorced the same woman four times, sometimes marrying other women in between, including one whose name was, honestly, Squirrelly.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana

“The distance between Mooreland in 1965 and a city like San Francisco in 1965 is roughly equivalent to the distance starlight must travel before we look up casually from a cornfield and see it.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana

“I once heard her tell a friend that she was, in fact, a 120-pound woman, but she kept herself wrapped in fat in order to prevent bruising.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana

“Honey, I know you like to take a drink, and that's all right, but be forewarned that I ain't your maid and I ain't your punching-bag, and if you ever raise your hand to me you'd best kill me. Because otherwise I'll wait till you're asleep; sew you into the bed; and beat you to death with a frying pan.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana

“On my end-of-the-year report card all she wrote was “Is disruptive in class. Colors outside the lines. Talks out of turn.” When I showed it to my parents, they read it out loud to me, and my mom said, “Good for you, sweetheart.” And my dad gave me a little pat on the back.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana

“The book was so clean and white, and the letters were so perfectly black and defenseless; it would have been like tearing the ears off a kitten.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“It was an Indian summer afternoon in Indiana, a rare gift. We walked home slowly. I thought Mom might be wrong about me having all I needed, but just at that moment, I had no need to complain.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland Indiana

“I could no longer look at him. I wished, in fact, for blindness.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy: Growing Up Small in Mooreland, Indiana

“I think what you’ll discover more and more as you get older is that most people aren’t thinking about you at all.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“It is an amazing moment, when one goes from being grateful for what one has to longing for what is impossible.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“there is simply nothing more comforting than the smell of one’s own bed.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“It depends. Are you going to be a high school basketball star?” “Probly,” I said, scratching at a scab. “I’m pretty good already.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“Um. Mom? That’s my new bike? I’ve hardly ridden it?” But she was already figuring out the pedals. I could see her mind and her body synchronizing in the way that is the ultimate truth about remembering, the way we carry our memories all through us.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“What does the Bible say about two or three gathered together?” he asked, not like in Sunday school, where everything was a quiz, but like maybe he just forgot. “‘Where two or three are gathered together, there I am also.’” Dad could sometimes get a smarty-pants look on his face, which I wouldn’t have ever been allowed to do myself. It was a look that said that people were just regularly walking into his traps. “Does it say two or three what?” he asked, looking me in the eye. I thought. Of course it meant people, but that’s not what it said. I shook my head. “Are there two or three of something out here?” he asked, gesturing around us. I nodded. “There are two or three trees, and two or three bugs, and two or three flowers. And us, of course.” “Then this is where God is.” I leaned against his arm. He was wrong about the Bible, and I knew it as well as I knew all the books of the New Testament, in order. Christians were flat-out strict about how everything got read, and nothing was to be scrumbled around unless it was by a preacher. But it was a nice place.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“Dana’s house could have been cut from a magazine, the kind of home that tells a story, even though no one lives in it.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“Dana’s father was the kind of man who bragged excessively about breaking the speed limit. He was big in a general way, with a long stride and rather stooped shoulders. Like his wife, he drank heavily and chain-smoked; he carried a whole roadmap of broken capillaries on his face. His eyes were what scared me most: he wore the look men get in their forties when they’ve given up hope and plan to get even. Everywhere he walked a vague sense of violence prevailed, although I was never certain whom he had hurt or if he was just a living threat. After working all day at the Chrysler, he and Jo spent the evening drinking and bowling. I rarely saw them.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“I’ve already been out here a long time, and my mom says you can never relive a single moment. I stopped swinging. A single moment. Individual blades of grass became very distinct in my vision, as they sometimes do in the light of thickly clouded days. I am thinking of a moment—it is gone. Here’s another—gone. Gone. Gone. One cannot consider, with any real accuracy, the currency of a single moment and its extinction. Those are not the words I thought, but I felt them. The ground spun beneath me, although I was sitting still. I stood up too fast and became light-headed and had to grab ahold of the swing set’s ladder, which was striped like a barber’s pole, I noticed for the first time. I wandered out of Rose’s yard and headed home as if I were sick. It was impossible to stop thinking about time; I couldn’t get it out of my head and the effect was that every step I took was measured in jerky increments that vividly illustrated the arrival of a little unit of time and the death of that unit, until I was nauseous.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“The job of parents, as I saw it, was to watch television and step into a child’s life only when absolutely necessary, like in the event of a tornado or a potential kidnapping.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“Dee Dee?” Mildred’s voice could sharpen pencils. “Where are you?”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy

“What, exactly, are you doing?” “Dog-sitting.” “Dog-sitting. Are all of your colleagues going out of town at the same time?” My mom was patient as a saint, but she said the word colleague as if it were coated with the oil drained off a can of tuna fish.”
― Haven Kimmel, A Girl Named Zippy