Notes from a Regicide Quotes

“You must understand that at all times, I wanted this couple to scoop me into their arms, except for when they did, which was my cue to wriggle and break away and shout at them and run to my room.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“Oh, if you’d been there, you know you would have raised hell,” said Zaffre.

Etoine shrugged. “I guess in the moment, I usually do. I just always expect something to stop me. That’s the trouble I’m afraid of—as if God will stop me. But if God wanted us to not raise hell, he would’ve made natural laws against it. You can’t go mistaking a human law for a natural law.”

“You don’t believe in God,” said Zaffre.

“I don’t really believe in laws either,” he said, and took another bite of the candy.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“if God wanted us to not raise hell, he would’ve made natural laws against it. You can’t go mistaking a human law for a natural law.” “You don’t believe in God,” said Zaffre. “I don’t really believe in laws either,” he said, and took another bite of the candy.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“Immediately came that Apollonian feeling, the lordly remove from everything, from which the warmth and the relaxation and the perfect safety—as if wrapped in the velvet burr of a curtain and looking out at a perfect evening—were only the cheap, obvious special effects.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“But meeting Marino was like glancing to my left and realizing that there had been another diver there all along, just outside of my helmet’s field of vision. From the beginning, I regarded him as an unexpected gift, something intricate and ingeniously designed.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“Perhaps there are only two kinds of people: not tops and bottoms exactly, but people who like being taken in hand and people who like to do the taking.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“The moon was heavy and full the night we dug up Sebastienne. Sweaty with light, a parody of the sun. It lit the sky around it into a blue twilight the color of Zaffre’s name. You shouldn’t do this kind of work except in darkness. You shouldn’t do it at all. None of the things I’m about to write should have happened. But, you see, I was in such trouble.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“I want her life to stretch out until the end of mine, but I know that all I have to offer-since I will die soon myself- is what the waves can offer to the shore.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“I just—when I held you, it was the only thing I've always wanted to do, and yet it wasn't enough, and I know that sex isn't the thing it was missing, but—I want to hold you."
"Why?"
"To keep you still for a moment, and to keep you from hurting yourself, and because I'm cold. Is that enough?”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“...she never did anything to her canvases-she never mortared pigments, she never slit away layers with the palette knife, she never sharpened a goddamn pencil-without also doing it to herself.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“Sebastienne's plot in the stone yard acquired a plurality of candles--a little city of candles, buildings of different heights and colors like the slums whose narrow row houses were painted in the liveries of their aristocratic owners, and all on fire.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“I wish you’d been my mom,” I said, unable to tell how much I meant and how much was ingratiation. I was always mistaking them for each other. She shook her body, as if throwing something off. “No, no, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” “But you meant it.” “Griffon, people who’ve been through the things we’ve been through, we learn to say things to other adults that will make them love us. I shouldn’t prompt you for what to say. I shouldn’t be like this. I should wait and earn your trust.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“He’s not a bad parent. He tries really hard.” I was still stuck on this idea of my father as a complicated man who required my careful handling, and I was always defensive—however weakly—when someone suggested he was simply bad. “Are we going to judge someone’s quality by their intentions? You’re old enough to understand that good intentions are not the same as being good.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide

“For the story of their lives in Stephensport, I have relied upon Etoine’s prison memoir. He wrote it when he thought that Zaffre was already dead, and he had nothing ahead but death on the gallows. He had no idea that he would live for decades after that, would outlive her again, would mourn her again.

Autoportrait, Blessé is what he called it: Self-Portrait with a Wound, or Self-Portrait, Injured. Nothing to do with the English “bless” or “blessing,” though you could be forgiven for thinking it, if you imagined my father had any hand for the sliding bow of a multilingual pun, or if you imagined he felt blessed.”
― Isaac Fellman, Notes from a Regicide