The Lost Quotes

“People were complex creatures, walking, talking rag quilts, youthful dreams and hopes and fears and middle-aged indiscretions, aging aches and pains and losses, the whole damn kit and kaboodle, mended here and tattered there. People were pushed and pulled in all sorts of directions and did whatever it was they had to do for balance.”
― Jack Ketchum, The Lost

“Betty Knot was sitting on the porch now with her old mongrel dog. Both of them fast and peacefully asleep in the shade, almost comically so, the widow leaning in her rocker with her mouth open wide and the old dog sprawled at her feet. And seeing them there made him smile and then unexpectedly saddened him with a sudden forceful clarity. It was as though he had looked behind the scene on the porch across the street into some terrible scene in the future. Because they each were all the other had in the world by way of comfort and it was possible for him to understand in that moment the cruel eventuality that was blooming there. They were both so damn old. He sensed a sort of fate about them and sensed too that it would descend upon them soon, that soon either the woman would lose the dog or the dog would lose the woman and they had been together since the dog was a pup. When death came to one the other would be left alone, no familiar hand to pat the dog or cool wet nose to nuzzle the hand, and there would be no consoling either dog or woman, something fragile lost forever in some awful rending.”
― Jack Ketchum, The Lost

“Friskies was noisy food, all hard little pellets. He enjoyed the crackling sounds and supposed the cat did too. He thought that they probably reminded her of tiny bones breaking, of who she was down deep.”
― Jack Ketchum, The Lost

“You could grow up every which way, a tree standing tall and straight in an open field or blasted and twisted on the side of a mountain.”
― Jack Ketchum, The Lost