Snake-Eater Quotes

“It was a small kindness you did,” they said. “But you and I are both small creatures”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Fortunately, some things stay true whether we believe in them or not.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Selena believed, with every fiber of her being, that a person’s worth was not defined by how hard they worked or how productive they managed to be. She also believed just as strongly that this did not apply to her.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“C’mon, Padre, didn’t the Lord promise something about floods?” “He promised not to destroy the world. Individuals are still expected to get to high ground.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Finally one of my teachers took me aside and said: ‘Manuel, you are not God. You aren’t omnipotent. Wanting to help is good, but this belief that you, personaly, have so much power to affect the universe is starting to border on personal idolatry.’” He snorted. “He wasn’t wrong.”
“Did that help?” Selena asked.
“Not really, but at least then I felt guilty about feeling guilty, which is very catholic.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Copper gazed at her soulfully and attempted to convey that she had never been petted, not once, but would like to experience it.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“You believe there are monsters?” she asked. “Like—really?”

“Of course,” said Father Aguirre. “There have always been monsters. The ones in the desert are a bit more straightforward than the ones in men, that's all.”

"And fewer people complain if you shoot them," said Grandma Billy.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“This is what comes of reading The Clan of the Cave Bear at a formative age.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“It was terrible wine,” said Grandma with dignity, “so I felt obliged to save the rest of you.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“I like you. I don’t like who you turn into when he’s in the room.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“She thought of going online and seeing ... what? All the news of world events that she couldn't change, celebrities whose names she couldn't remember. Sorry,>/i> she told the world silently. I can barely manage to take care of myself wight now. Maybe later.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“In her head, she tried out saying, "Meep meep, motherfucker," and possibly that would be amazing and possibly it would be incredibly silly and since she couldn't decide, she said nothing at all and pulled the trigger instead.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Dunno,” she said finally. “It’s like telling apart people, I guess. You might not recognize someone after the first time, but the third or fourth or tenth time, you know who they are. It’s the same with plants. You just have to get good at looking at them.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Selena was fairly sure that trigonometry emergencies did not often involve zombie squirrels with their guts on a nail, but was still trying to think of a way to phrase that when they reached the outskirts of town.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“If anything bad happened to anyone I knew, I would ask why I hadn’t been there to stop it. If I’d paid attention, or been present, or even just prayed harder, surely I could have done something. Finally one of my teachers took me aside and said, ‘Manuel, you are not God. You aren’t omnipotent. Wanting to help is good, but this belief that you, personally, have so much power to affect the universe is starting to border on personal idolatry.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Whenever Selena had argued with her, her mother would yell, “Satan, get out of my daughter!” Often very loudly. In public.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Selena wasn’t any more insane than she thought she was. That was a trifle disappointing from one direction, but an enormous relief from the other one.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“maybe Copper was doing her patented Stare Hard Enough and the Human Will Give Me a Treat trick.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“It was the most ridiculous scenario imaginable and yet suddenly there were scripts in Selena’s head that had been hammered in by years of work. “I ask you to leave,” she said. “I tell you to go to hell. I throw one of them rotisserie chickens at your head.” Someone had actually thrown a plastic container of macaroni salad at Selena’s head once, during the rush when a woman in a sweater that said Peace on earth had discovered that you could not order a full turkey dinner on the morning of Thanksgiving. And Selena had ducked and it had splattered on the wall and she’d turned around and faced the woman and yelled— “Come on,” snarled Grandma Billy, right up in her face. “I’m throwing the fancy cheese around and wiping my ass with the ham.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Selena had had plenty of grumpy customers at the deli. She’d never had one send monsters to stare in her windows.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“I had a bit of a nervous breakdown.” Grandma did not respond to this with shock or horror. “Huh. Never had one myself. Always thought they sounded interesting.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“This is not really happening. There is no way that this is really happening. She had to say something. “You believe there are monsters?” she asked. “Like—really?” “Of course,” said Father Aguirre. “There have always been monsters. The ones in the desert are a bit more straightforward than the ones in men, that’s all.” “And fewer people complain if you shoot them,” said Grandma Billy.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“I felt guilty about feeling guilty”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“He wasn’t all bad,” she said, feeling guilty. Walter had gotten her away from her mother. It was just that there had been nobody left after that to get her away from Walter. “Hardly anybody is,” said Grandma Billy. “He didn’t hit me or anything.” “That’s a damn low bar to clear.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Selena believed, with every fiber of her being, that a person’s worth was not defined by how hard they worked or how productive they managed to be. She also believed just as strongly that this did not apply to her. There really ought to be some kind of card, Selena decided, something you could carry to prove that you weren’t a freeloader. It could say something like, “Hard Worker, Temporarily Fallen on Bad Times.” And on the reverse it would say, “Not in the Habit of Mooching.” All it took was one run of bad luck and it didn’t matter how hard you’d worked your whole life, you were down in the gutter with the broken and the unlucky and the professionally helpless. And it hadn’t even been bad luck, in Selena’s case, just a sudden mad dash for freedom.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“And you know, there’s that point where you’re like, ‘I love you, but you’re loading the dishwasher wrong’?” “Twenty-seven years with Billy,” said Grandma, snorting. “Twenty-seven years, and every damn dish had to soak for three days. Not that we had a dishwasher, but he’d leave things in the sink.” She glared at her mojito. “I miss him something fierce, even now, but by god, my sink is clean.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Some things are attracted to sadness,” said Grandma. “And you came in here a nervous wreck”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“[T]hinking that the only way to be friends is fucking. Although that's a lot of men's problem, not just his.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“She chooses to fight for you in her own way,” a voice said in her ear. “Would you ask strangers to fight for you, but deny your friends?”
“I don’t want her to get hurt. I don’t want any of them to get hurt!”
“Would you bear her hurts if you could?”
“Yes, of course!”
A soft, maternal chuckle. “Then grant her the same thing. You cannot stop others from loving you, you know, or from being noble about it.”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater

“Infinite and unending love to my husband”
― T. Kingfisher, Snake-Eater