The Banks of Certain Rivers Quotes

“What is a memory, anyway? Is it an indelible record, unimpeachable, frozen in some synaptic arrangement and stored away for some moment it might be needed in the future? Or is it subject to editing and revision, something plastic that our brains can shape into another form we can handle, something less toxic than the original, something less able to poison us?”
― Jon Harrison, The Banks of Certain Rivers

“I start to run, and my nose fills with the smell of rain and wet earth. I run along the shoulder of the highway in an easy rhythm, and the rain gathers up on my forehead and eyebrows; it flows down my face, it drips from the tip of my nose. There is wet dirt, a puddle in the gravel, new grass pushing through old in the ditch. Violets grow along the edge of the road. To my right, the Little Jib River flows brown and swollen to the lake. The water moves ceaselessly, and I move along with it. To my left, across the road, the rain strips wilted cherry blossoms from the rows and rows of trees, and drops them to the ground.”
― Jon Harrison, The Banks of Certain Rivers

“an unfairly earned comprehension of sorrow and loss. And an understanding too that time can be misplaced, rage can cause blank spaces or ellipses in our own personal timelines that only those who were around to see can document for us.”
― Jon Harrison, The Banks of Certain Rivers

“In my experience, the minute you admit that you really love something? That’s just about the time it decides to go away.”
― Jon Harrison, The Banks of Certain Rivers

“every time Christopher is away like this, and we say goodbye on the phone, I actively say to myself, “I wonder if that was the last time I’ll say goodbye to my son?”
― Jon Harrison, The Banks of Certain Rivers