The Boy in His Winter Quotes

“I would prefer to believe that things possess the power of recall, of recollection. That things are memoirs of the existences that once were theirs, if only we knew how to read them.”
― Norman Lock, The Boy in His Winter: An American Novel

“Hatred is unattractive, but it's also irresistible. If men were honest with themselves, they'd admit it's a stronger passion than lust.”
― Norman Lock, The Boy in His Winter: An American Novel

“To ennoble is to diminish by robbing people of their complexity, their completeness, of their humanity, which is always clouded by what gets stirred up at the bottom.”
― Norman Lock, The Boy in His Winter: An American Novel

“We may not realize it, but every point during the passage of our lives is a point of no return -- except for what memory permits.”
― Norman Lock, The Boy in His Winter: An American Novel

“I insist on caprice as a necessary countermeasure to slavery. Otherwise, my own dictatorial mind must take -- unknown to me -- its instructions from a mastermind.”
― Norman Lock, The Boy in His Winter: An American Novel

“{Y}ou make do with what you're given, and I've spent a good many years learning to write fine-sounding sentences so that I can hide behind them. It's the way of the hermit crab, with nothing to recommend it but the pretty shell it annexes for its own.”
― Norman Lock, The Boy in His Winter: An American Novel

“Talking of appearances, I would like my future readers to know that the picture of Jim and me that Thomas Hart Benton painted on the wall of the Missouri state capitol bears not the slightest resemblance to either one of us. ... I've never been satisfied with any representation of myself and have seen only one picture of Jim that did him justice. I don't know why this should be, unless it is evidence of a nearly universal prejudice against us, instigated by Sunday school superintendents, Republicans, and bigots.”
― Norman Lock, The Boy in His Winter: An American Novel

“But because I do not wish to be remembered (if I will be remembered) as a self-indulgent fantasist, I'll skip the purple patch for now, however much I wish to write it. I need to make amends for my indifference, for having turned my back on the world in favor of the beauties of the way. I'll try to study cruelty (I regret my own) and render it in more familiar terms.”
― Norman Lock, The Boy in His Winter: An American Novel