Bug Hollow Quotes

“Funny how the days you weep, you can also have the fullest, deepest laughs.”
― Michelle Huneven, Bug Hollow

“Of Julia’s wiggly, vertical balloon Sally made a tree with birds in their nests. “El’s right,” Julia said. “You are a good artist. Is that what you want to be when you grow up?” Something inside Sally clanged. Nobody had ever called her an artist, yet by that clang she knew that’s exactly what she was. She nodded and ducked close to her paper, abashed and wildly pleased. Julia said, “Good. You and me. We’ll be the artists in the family—agreed?” Sally has thought of this moment a thousand times since.”
― Michelle Huneven, Bug Hollow

“Sally, in the far back seat, colored on a newsprint pad, but mostly she stared out the window and imagined living in different houses they passed. Or she looked at the backs of the others in the car and thought, Who are these people, and why aren’t they nicer? For as long as she could remember—from her very first remembered thought—she’d had a sense of coming from somewhere else, a place of kindness and good humor and justice, where people weren’t so grouchy and annoyed and quick to anger.”
― Michelle Huneven, Bug Hollow

“She had to be careful, even now, as she shifted up to fourth gear on the open highway again, to not reinfect herself with that sticky, toxic terror that life—this life, which gave you the beautiful sparkling world—squashed you like a gnat.”
― Michelle Huneven, Bug Hollow

“Write a story about a sibling you never had…”
― Michelle Huneven, Bug Hollow

“The sisters had made chicken biryani with raita and a red lentil dal, some fresh chard sautéed with garlic, and soft, homemade naan. A green salad. Sibbie had crayoned name cards; his was decorated with numbers, pluses, and minuses, Pilar’s had wings (“For your Border Angels,” Sibbie said).”
― Michelle Huneven, Bug Hollow

“A literature award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters gave me a timely, welcome boost. The Huntington Gardens and Library gave me a quiet place to work.”
― Michelle Huneven, Bug Hollow

“The family was supposed to go car camping on the Oregon coast, but now they couldn’t, in case Ellis called.”
― Michelle Huneven, Bug Hollow

“Americana in the Arabian desert filled with rig drillers from Elk City, Oklahoma. Then here’s your mother, so cultured and graceful and intelligent. She shone among those roughnecks.”
― Michelle Huneven, Bug Hollow