Tampa Quotes

“I found that sometimes it was a relief to do something unattractive in private, to confirm that I’m deeply flawed when so many others imagine me to be perfect. People are often startled by my handwriting; because I’m pretty, they assume everything I do is pretty. It’s odd to them that I write like I have a hook for an arm, just as Ford would be startled to learn I have a hook for a heart.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“His eyes took in the details of my body with a conflicted gaze that I knew well: even having seen all the facts of the case, he still wanted me. He wanted me despite knowing what that meant about him.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“Like most pronounced flaws, it did not live in isolation.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“There was something repulsive (and revealing) about talking on a cell phone while handling garbage. Why did anyone pretend human relationships had value?”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“Despite being told he could step down, Jack stayed for a moment,crying, then looked over at me. It wasn't at all the look of hatred I'd expected. Instead it was a look of mutual knowledge, Jack conveying to me his new understanding that the world could be a terrible place. His eyes said that no one at all was looking out for him or able to fix this essential flaw in life's fabric; my eyes stared back and told him that he was right.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“My attorney rubbed his hand across his mustache and the corners of his lips several times, as though the allegation was a piece of cake he’d just eaten that had deposited crumbs all over his mouth.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“ennui”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“Sex struck me as a seafood with the shortest imaginable shelf life needing to be peeled and eaten the moment the urge ripened.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“I won't tell," he said, his arms holding my waist with amateur stiffness. I smiled, thinking about the lover he'd become and all the things he'd try with me for the very first time. I'd be the sexual yardstick for his whole life: Jack would spend the rest of his days trying but failing to relive the experience of being given everything at a time when he knew nothing. Like a tollbooth in his memory, every partner he'd have afterwards would have to pass through the gate of my comparison, and it would be a losing equation. The numbers could never be as favorable as they were right now, when his naivety would be subtracted from my experience to produce the largest sum of astonishment possible.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“The numbers could never be as favorable as they were right now, when his naiveté would be subtracted from my expertise to produce the largest sum of astonishment possible.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“The screams echoing through Janet's class were hard to bear. She was attempting a lecture on the Treaty of Paris while Mrs. Pachenko walked between the rows of desks insisting upon calm, raising a finger to her lips and whispering to individual students to please sit all the way down in their desks. In the back of the of the room, several kids were cheering as one of them, a young man whose shirt bore a flaming skull, stood hunched atop his desk like a motocross biker, sliding it forward in small hops. Students appear enthusiastic and are communicating well together, I wrote on the evaluation form.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“He seemed to understand that resolution didn’t need to have anything to do with truth, and to choose a sense of harmony over insight every time. I”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“Janet stood and began a wide navigation of turning one hundred and eighty degrees to enter her vehicle, her slow toddles calling to mind a sleepwalking badger. Her weak forearms often came alive to shoo away invisible hindrances, pawing the air with disgruntled choler. Before beginning the climb up the van’s two carpeted steps, the most athletic portion of her adieu, she unceremoniously dropped her cigarette butt to the ground without extinguishing it. I got the feeling she hoped it might roll beneath the vehicle’s gas tank and give her a true Viking burial.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“I smiled as our hands pressed against one another in midair, as though we were pretending to touch through invisible glass. We managed a long stare before Jack finally blushed, retracting his hands. “How old are you, Jack Patrick?” “I turned fourteen this summer,” he said. I gave an impressed nod, indicating this was no small accomplishment. “Well you’re certainly old enough to know what you like.” Principal Deegan’s first-day speech came back to mind; I had to bite my lip not to jokingly add in, Am I right? “Here, let me give you some examples. Do you like it when girls wear lipstick?” He blushed and nodded. “Yeah.” His voice had an embarrassed tone, like he’d just made a vile confession. “Good—do you like lighter lipstick? Darker lipstick? Red?” I wanted to grab his hand again. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to slide my fingers beneath the desk and touch the bare skin of his leg. “Um,” he said. His hand began to scratch at his scalp. “Wait,” I said. “I have an idea.” I walked up to my desk and grabbed my purse and a box of Kleenex. “So what I’m wearing now is called fuchsia. Kind of a bright pink.” I sat and wiped it off, then took the fuchsia tube of lipstick out of my purse along with two others. “Okay, ready?” He nodded with sudden animation—we were about to play a game.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“Or perhaps he was skilled at foreshadowing. I’d imagine a pious avoidance of sin requires that.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“...occasionally some of the mothers did see fit to bring their young children along to practice the valuable life skill of standing on the side of the road with indignation.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“You will go home and snort a small amount of the cocaine you keep in the Altoids tin in your pajama drawer. You will robotically fuck your husband until your box feels like a gaping wound. You will be so aggressive that he will be frightened, and his fear will keep you from being completely repulsed by him.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“At dinner I began to sit with my legs clenched painfully together for fear that if I opened them even the slightest bit, it might unleash a shrill wail that would shatter the crystal wineglasses.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“Oh my God—you’re a soulless pervert!”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“Outside, a car drove by with its stereo jovially blaring; its vibrations shook the windows in Jack’s bedroom. I couldn’t help but feel like Buck’s death had made the whole world seem a bit younger.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“it’s nice, just for the present, to not have to do anything that repulses me other than live in squalor.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“– Mi ami? – chiese. Dopo che la domanda non ebbe ottenuto risposta, cominciò a cercare un premio di consolazione. – C’è una parte di te che mi ha mai amato? – Non mi dava fastidio la rabbia, ma la sua espressione stava diventando offensiva e mi dava il voltastomaco. La sua pena sembrava cosí intima, privata e unica, non diversa da un escremento, qualcosa con cui avere a che fare da soli. Ma lui era lí che me la scodellava davanti e me la faceva annusare.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“It was a hideous color, like the erection of a dog.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“With her square, Germanic jaw and wide-set shoulders, it was easy for me to picture her hearty dumps.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“If you were a teenage male,” the commentator began, pointing a leering finger back at the photo, “would you call a sexual experience with her abuse?”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“There was something repulsive (and revealing) about talking on a cell phone while handling garbage. Why did anyone pretend human relationships had value?”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“included his cell phone number, which I made a point of keeping in my purse until my next bowel movement.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“boys who likely wouldn’t kiss and tell were the hardest to kiss in the first place.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“His chest was sweating the way a fatally wounded stab victim might bleed.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa

“How appropriate; you are foul to me and I just wallpapered my cervix with the name of a teenage boy.”
― Alissa Nutting, Tampa