Grey Dog Quotes

“A good woman. How odd that the phrase has such a particular meaning. One might say “a good man” and mean anything — there are as many ways of being a good man, it seems, as there are of being a man at all. But there is only one way to be a good woman. It is such a narrow, stunted, blighted way to be that I wonder any woman throughout history has been up to the task. Perhaps none of us ever have.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“I am not a place where nature can be weeded and tamed and kept in order. I am tree roots — and dark hollows — and ancient moss — and the cry of owls. I am not a thing that you can shape, not anymore. I am no garden, but the woods, and if you ever come near me again, every bit of wildness in me will rise up to bite you. I will tear your throat out with my teeth.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“Every woman is full of tragedies. She is obliged to share them with nobody but God.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“What a dreadful responsibility. To have a bright little face turned up to you, shining with trust, and know that whatever happens next is your burden to bear, and yours alone.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“A monster seen is a monster that can be dealt with. A monster hidden beneath a bed or inside a wardrobe cannot.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“If all women could be widows without marrying first, I think that there would be not a single woman in the world who would choose a living husband over a dead one.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“It is a very seductive thing, knowing that someone wants you; it is almost as good as getting what you truly desire.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“Small towns are veritable factories of gossip, churning out thick black clouds of judgment that pall the landscape for miles around. How long before that cloud would hang over me?”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“There are two Gods,' she'd told me once, sotto voce in case our father heard her uttering such an impious thought. 'There is the God of inside — the God of churches, and prayer meetings and all that — and then there is the God of outside, the God that lives in the trees and in the dirt. And the insects, and the birds, and the things that eat them too.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog: Library Edition

“I would have been fine. And now . . . now I’d had the thing I wanted, and it was being taken away from me. It’s worse than not having it at all, having it and then not having it.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“now I’d had the thing I wanted, and it was being taken away from me. It’s worse than not having it at all, having it and then not having it.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“wends”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“The value of knowledge,” I said, “is self-evident, Mr. Gannis. It does not need to be justified by utility.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“Or does she simply suffer from that most provincial of afflictions: fear of a woman alone?”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“I could turn the body on top of mine into someone else’s. Softness instead of hardness, sweet instead of sour. In the dream, I could transform him into her.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“I brought my map of the world to hang upon the wall, which Mrs. Grier regarded with interest, and my specimen jars to arrange at the edge of my desk, which she regarded with confusion (and, in the case of the owlet skull, not a little horror). When I tried to explain their purpose, her confusion only deepened.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog

“There is no end to the lessons that children may learn from the world around them, Mrs. Grier, and while those lessons may not be as immediately useful as arithmetic or spelling, they are beneficial nonetheless. A flower or a singing bird may teach them as much about the universe as a history book.”
― Elliott Gish, Grey Dog