Bloom Town Quotes

“4. I dream about you every goddamn night. Every time I even close my eyes. But my dreams blur the edges and I’m driving myself mad thinking that one day that’s all I’ll have left of you. Blurred edges in my dreams.   5. I want you to know that I”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“The sun may be a million miles away, but still it lights the moon.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“I listened to you, now you listen to me,” she said, her tone gentle, but there was an undercurrent there—something dangerous just beneath. “I’ve changed. I’m better than I was because I wanted to be better for the children. For Lewis. For you. I fucked up, I shouldn’t have left you, I shouldn’t have—” she gestured, grimacing, “the chloroform. Was a poor choice.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“Remember what you told me? About anger and happiness and how you get to choose?” He nodded, slow and careful. “Family is like that too. When you’re old enough, you get to choose.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“Standing there in the spotlight he looked more at home than he ever had before, his eyes big and bright and clear. The darkness was gone, there wasn’t a trace of it left. He’d emptied it all into the play. The anger, the hurt, the horror. Then he’d gone and given it a happy ending, and it was then that Abby realized he’d had hope inside of him all along. It had just needed a place to take root. To grow.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“cantankerous”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“take it, pretty girl—Jesus, fuck—” She was snapping her hips into Abby’s mouth, thrusting relentlessly as she came, a fistful of Abby’s hair in her hand to keep her face exactly where it was so she could writhe on it. She collapsed back against the desk when she came down and Abby stood slowly, leaning over her, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Think you’re the one who took it,” she nipped at Joey’s ear, “pretty girl.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“letting her thumbs settle into the dip of her waist, pulling her into another thrust. Fuck. There was something to this. Something in the way Joey was spread wide for her, letting Abby take her fill. It was nearly primal,”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“letting her thumbs settle into the dip of her waist, pulling her into another thrust. Fuck. There was something to this. Something in the way Joey was spread wide for her, letting Abby take her fill.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“Is what happened to us at the brothel worse than what happened to Ezzie when she was a slave?” Joey had looked at Abby and Abby had just looked back, helpless. She wasn’t sure there was an answer to that question, so she stayed silent and instead found Jack’s hand beneath his quilt and squeezed. “Not really somethin’ you can compare,” Joey said after a long while. “Venom from a red diamond kills you just as quick as the bite of a sidewinder.” “But we’re here,” Jack said. “Us, Ezzie and the others. Those things didn’t kill us at all.” “No,” Joey’s soft smile grew into a grin. “No, they didn’t.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“There was still work to be done. Perhaps there always would be—maybe that was the point of it all, in the end—finding someone to soften your edges as you soften theirs. It wasn’t perfect.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“Because your version of God is powerless. He’s fiction, and poor fiction at that. He’s words in a fucking book that you use to control and condemn and compel.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“But I think, more than anything, it’s because I’m seeing the world plainly these days, and fairytale endings rarely ever leave the page.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“That’s what I find confounding. He seems malevolent, this white man’s God, suffering his people to wander when he could have just led them. More confounding still—the people were content to wander, looking to the sky rather than to each other.” Abby shrugged. “I suppose it’s a question of which is crueler—believing in a false hope or not having any hope at all?” “Or perhaps it’s a question of which is wiser—to waste your life seeking a promised land, or to spend your life creating one?”  ”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“the sun never forces anyone along a certain route, instead it lights the way for people to choose their own path.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“She’d saved Abby’s entire life only to run in the other direction, wholly convinced Abby was better off alone than anywhere near her.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“I’ll look for you,” Abby heard herself say. “I won’t stop looking for you.” But Joey just pulled back to meet her eyes with a ghost of a smile. “You’re so goddamn beautiful. All of you—not just,” she shook her head. “You’re the best person I’ve ever known, and it’s been a fuckin’ wonder gettin’ to know you. A privilege. And in another lifetime,” she leaned in, kissing Abby softly, one last time, “I’d love you with every piece of me left.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“It’s our great honor to welcome you,” he smiled, “to Bloom Town.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“Abby smiled. Olive had been the one to suddenly start calling them Mum and Mama one morning at breakfast. Simple as that—she’d just decided, unprompted, those were their names now.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“mean. You can’t be angry and happy all at once, not really. And with the rope and the—everything that happened today…afterwards? I was still angry, but I wanted to be happy. And that’s what I realized. You get to choose.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“Abby stood, shivering, taking one last moment to look up at the night before going in. The sky was thick with clouds, the stars beyond were unseeable, but for the first time since summer her heart didn’t sink at the sight of a moonless sky. There would be other nights after which the sun would rise and the days would march on and what did it matter, really, if she couldn’t see the moon?   Maybe just knowing it was up there, somewhere, was enough.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“She wasn’t ready to just be Abby. She wasn’t sure it would be enough.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“She was attached to a kite; a brilliant soaring thing, bright and colorful. Without it, she’d just be Abby.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“Happiness and love are not finite goods to be bartered and rationed. They expand upon each other; they grow and touch others and shed light into dark corners. You should want happiness all the more for the sorry state of the world so that you can share it.” She squeezed Abby’s hand, emphasizing her next words. “Stop being angry at yourself for living twenty-five years with the wrong idea about the world, and start imagining all the good you can do with the rest of your life, now that your eyes are wide open.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“bartered and rationed. They expand upon each other; they grow and touch others and shed light into dark corners. You should want happiness all the more for the sorry state of the world so that you can share it.” She squeezed Abby’s hand, emphasizing her next words. “Stop being angry at yourself for living twenty-five years with the wrong idea about the world, and start imagining all the good you can do with the rest of your life, now that your eyes are wide open.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“didn’t say your name out loud because I knew it would take root in me. I didn’t say it out loud, but it was a constant prayer in my head these past weeks.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“The unfriendliness of the world is all the more reason to build a haven of your own,”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“But the sun never forces anyone along a certain route, instead it lights the way for people to choose their own path.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“It is fitting then, your name. For one who falls only to rise again.” “Dabai?” Abby tried it again, feeling the weight of it on her tongue. “What does it mean?” “Sun,”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus

“I know why you didn’t run,” Abby whispered. “You should’ve, but I know why you didn’t. I love her too.”
― Ally North, Bloom Town: Exodus