The Guncle Abroad Quotes

“That was the thing about grief; each memory had a way of amplifying in importance, lest they, too, be lost forever.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“As a gay man, I’ve been fortunate to live in a time when we have gained incredible rights in a historically short period of time. When that happens, there is an inevitable period of backslide. There are cowardly politicians hell-bent on taking hard-fought and -won rights from minority communities while banning our stories in an attempt to deny our basic humanity. We cannot allow that to happen. Thank you to the brave teachers and librarians, parents and readers who have stood on the front lines fighting book bans. Every hateful comment I receive about The Guncle is validation I’m doing something right.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“And what stories these days don’t have happy endings? They all do, because the planet is on fire and our rights are being stripped and we’re slipping into fascism and people need some distraction from their miserable lives—”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“The connection between two people is not always something others are meant to see.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Finer things. Don’t save them for a day that may never come, enjoy them with someone you love now.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Maybe it fixes itself. Or maybe it doesn’t. And we make peace with some things that are broken.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“I can't snap my fingers and order you to be anything. I can ASK you to choose happiness when you can. I can ask you to try. I can show you what happens when you let new people into your life.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“You will never know what it is you want until you are certain of who you are.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Can grief and gratitude coexist? Could he miss the kids’ mother and also be grateful for his time with Maisie and Grant? Or did the gratitude just make him miss Sara more and wish she was the one on this train with him instead of her sleeping kids? And in helping them these past few years with their grief, had he once again neglected his own?”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“That was the thing about grief, none of us wanted to travel with it, exactly, but the suggestion that we would or should be over it was somehow an even more unwelcome passenger.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“You know me. As long as I get near-constant attention I’ll be fine.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Patrick reclined again in his chair and closed his eyes. It was so much easier to attend to the kids with a partner. With Clara there he felt free to relax and trust that someone would pick up the slack. He could let his guard down if they walked toward the water or were to talk to other kids, and he suddenly had great sympathy for his brother, Greg. Yes she was beautiful and yes she was wealthy, but could this also be part of Livia's appeal? Having someone around that allowed Greg the luxury of exhaling, to not have to be on guard ALL the time?”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Feelings for adults are like treasures. And by that I mean we should bury them.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Sequels are either too bloated, too stuffed with B-team actors or characters or Ewoks - things that weren't good enough for the original. A cash grab to profit off something that was probably a fluke in the first place.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“See how the lights twinkle?” Patrick pointed at the horizon. He held on tight to Grant, who he imagined felt even further from Sara; Maisie, after all, had nine years with her mother, while her brother only had six. “They’re not actually flickering, not really. The lights themselves are static. It’s all the things we cannot see between us and them that make them shimmer. Atmospheric densities, dust, moisture, humidity, that sort of thing. I’m not really the expert. But all the invisible things. Like your mom, she’s one of them now, too. When she starts to feel far away, I like to imagine she’s not as far away as we might think. She’s right here between us and the lights.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Emory wasn’t the type to get jealous over the occasional Pip. It was emotional fidelity that had always been more of his thing.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Patrick pulled out his phone and stared at it, unsure as to why he did. That happened a lot lately. It was the interesting thing about straddling a generational divide. He’d lived more than half his life without a smartphone and everything had been fine. Now he reached for his device impulsively with an overwhelming desire to cut short the moment he was in, hoping for a different, better moment, like his entire body had been neurologically rewired. It was a sick addiction.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“I want you to really live. And change is the biggest part of living.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Love is something special to be protected. Because if you don’t protect it, if you don’t honor it as something rare and precious, it’s easy to walk away from.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“...thinking about love languages the whole way. They were not just a form of expression, but rather ways to reveal yourself that others found meaningful”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“admiration for the Italians for their ability to shift the direction of their hospitality so effortlessly. It didn’t matter who they were gathered to celebrate, so much as that they were gathered to celebrate.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“The trouble with men is they think everyone wants to hear what they have to say.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Why do my hands look so much older than the rest of me?” “You only say that because you can’t see your face.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“It’s quite possible you read too much,” Patrick told her. Maisie scowled and said the problem with adults is that they read too little.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“I’m saying if you have good dishes, use the good dishes for a meal with someone you care about. If you have nice shoes, but you’re afraid to get them dirty, wear the good shoes and complete your outfit. Finer things. Don’t save them for a day that may never come, enjoy them with someone you love now. And if you’re going to have simple things like a hot beverage, you might as well have the world’s best.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“With the right person, time flies. Forever goes by in a blink. But the good news is, you’re the pilot. And when you have a good copilot, it makes the journey all the more bearable.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Americans try to fix everything. Maybe it fixes itself. Or maybe it doesn’t. And we make peace with some things that are broken.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“Come quickly, I am drinking the stars.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“The most terrible poverty is loneliness.”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad

“conversation has now exceeded my interest”
― Steven Rowley, The Guncle Abroad