American Elsewhere Quotes

“The older you get, the more voices you get in the back of your head.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“It is quite complicated, being civilised.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“After all, deep in every Texan’s heart, there remains the steadfast belief that any problem can be solved with a big enough gun.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“One day Nola came into school wearing a set of incredibly thick glasses, and though they did no favors to her appearance, Nola was ecstatic: she could see all kinds of things now, things she’d never known were even there. She’d had no idea trees were so pretty, she said. She could see every single leaf waving in the wind now. For some reason, this terrified young Mona. It wasn’t that Nola’s vision had changed: it was that her vision had changed without her even knowing it. There were all kinds of things happening around her that she’d never known about, that she was blind to. Though her experience of the world had seemed whole and certain to her, in truth it had been marred, filled with blind spots, and she’d had no idea.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“...there is no better time to examine and understand one’s selfhood than when it is dissected and hurtling through darkness.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“No one does. No one really knows how to be happy. You just get close, sometimes. That’s all I want – just to be close.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Here at the edges, in the cracks and at the crossroads, stepping from shadow to shadow in the river of darkness that runs through the heart of Wink, he feels much more at home.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Density, matter, radiation… it’s all just construction paper and pipe cleaners and glue, with the proper perspective.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, yadda yadda yadda.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“It is nearly two o’clock in the morning, and Tom Bolan is ass-over-head, military-grade, wearing-more-booze-than-he’s-ingesting drunk.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Comes he walking windy-ways, wandering under spruces and through canyons and across shadowy glens, hands in his pockets and head bowed as if all the weight of the world lies teetering on his slumped shoulders.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Oh, propriety,” says Mrs Benjamin. “We’re always so concerned with propriety. Even in total madness, we still stick to our hierarchies and chains of command.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Every second is a forever in Wink. Every day is a cool afternoon waiting to happen. And every life is one lived quietly, with your feet up and your sun-dappled lawn before you as you watch the world happily drift by.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“The woods go on and on. Joseph never knew they were so big. But then, he has never really ventured into them before. As a young boy he always wanted to, for what child would turn down an untamed kingdom just beyond his doorstep? But it was drilled into him from the start that his life, like everyone’s in Wink, was to be anchored to the streets and sidewalks and well-lit areas, places of sunlight and fresh breeze. The other places, the places in the forest and those hidden in the canyons, well … those just weren’t theirs to have.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“No one really knows how to be happy. You just get close, sometimes. That’s all I want – just to be close.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“He’s spent too much time in the havens at the center of Wink, far too much time puttering around his store and among his neighbors. Here at the edges, in the cracks and at the crossroads, stepping from shadow to shadow in the river of darkness that runs through the heart of Wink, he feels much more at home.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“It’s an awful sound, one that makes Joseph’s teeth hurt, like someone’s taken a swarm of some particularly vicious cousin of the cicada, tossed them all in a bag, and given the bag a shake, pissing them off. And yet Joseph feels there are words in that buzz. The thing in the trees is calling out a message, like a warning—This territory is mine. Stay off. Gracie motions to him to stoop down low, and they begin to creep around the area the sound came from. As they pass through one glen Joseph looks up through the branches, and he sees something at the top of a tree, near the trunk. It is dark, but he thinks he sees the silhouette of a man, balanced perfectly on a high branch like a rooster on top of a barn. In the starlight Joseph thinks he can make out the edge of the man’s face, and while he can discern a nose and a mouth, he cannot see any ears, or eyes… as he looks closer, the dark figure shifts a little on the branch, settles back its shoulders, and it lifts its head, and as it does the horrible buzz fills the forest again. Joseph feels his heart ratchet up its rate until he can feel his pulse in his eyes. The shadowy figure in the tree trembles as the buzz dies to a close, and he can see the thing begin looking around from the top of the tree, searching for intruders…”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“The cars drip and slide through the neighborhood lanes with the gentle pace of raindrops weaving down window glass.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“she just can’t compete with this level of estrogen.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“A dream of your country, your people. A quiet, small life… I do not know if the dream was ever real or not, but it is yours. I believe it appeals to your people just as much as it does mine.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“In this small, quiet place, filled with so many small, quiet people, they could be something they had never been.” “What?” says Mona. Parson’s face contorts into one of utter disgust. He turns to Mona, and when he speaks his contempt is almost overwhelming: “They believed they could be happy.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Men always forget that human happiness is a disposition of mind and not a condition of circumstances.” —John Locke”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Having you is different from loving you.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Where the hell are you going?” says Bolan. “The trunk. Are we… not putting her in the trunk?” “Why the fuck would we put her in the trunk?” says Mallory. “Well, that’s usually where I put unconscious people,” says Dord.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Mrs. Benjamin does not precisely understand first aid, but she thinks she gets the general principles: things that are within the body must stay within at all times. If they do not stay in, they must be forced in, and kept there via things like gauze and sticky tape.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“there is nothing worse than an opponent who is suddenly revealed to be understanding and compassionate.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Because it is possible for something to enter your world that is so vast, so terrible, so foreign, that you cannot coexist with it: you must, in some way or another, vacate the premises, give up your seat. Merely knowing that this thing exists pulls the supports out from everything you know and trust: the established world falls around you like a circus tent whose center pole is cut. And you must go with it. You must get out. You have to get out.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“It all tears away from us,” he says, “like paper.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“He’s not sure how all the cowboys stay so good-looking in the movies when the country is so openly hostile to sartorial maintenance.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere

“Why is it, she thought, that people always leave us just before we know them?”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, American Elsewhere