The Elementals Quotes

“Savage mothers eat their children!”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“To have a family is real strange,” said India thoughtfully. “All these people you wouldn’t have anything to do with except that they’re related to you.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“Alcoholism is a disease,” she said. “Like athlete’s foot. Or herpes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Luker and I have lots of friends who are alcoholics. And speed freaks too.” “Well,”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“India had previously entertained no sympathy for the Southern way of life, with its pervasive friendliness, its offhanded viciousness, its overwhelming lassitude.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“Daylight had not brought a solution, but it had accorded indifference.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“It’s bad when the dead talk in dreams,” said Odessa.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“There’s no point in advertising a circus when everybody hates the clown.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“To them all, Beldame represented the fair and possible reward for distress, misfortune, and labor in this world—it was to them a heaven on earth, and resembled the other, preached-of heaven in that it was bright, remote, timeless, and empty.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“She’s got manners, but what has she got in the way of morals?” “Oh,” said Luker blithely, “she and I don’t have any morals. We have to get along with a scruple or two.” “I”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“In the night, the house settled. Creaks sounded in the hallways like errant footsteps, windows popped in their frames, china rattled in the cupboards, and pictures suddenly slipped awry on the walls.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“The words yesterday and tomorrow might have been excised from their vocabulary: for yesterday had entertained nothing that was worth today’s speech, and tomorrow could promise no change from today.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“You know what you should have done, added Luker, you should have ripped his balls off and stapled them to the back of his throat.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“Daylight had not brought a solution, but it had accorded indifference. Having”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“There's no point in advertising a circus when everybody hates the clown.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“What's in that house, child, knows more than you know. What's in that house don't come out of your mind. It don't have to worry 'bout rules and behaving like a spirit ought to behave. It does what it does to fool you, it wants to trick you into believing what's not right. It's got no truth to it. What it did last week it's not gone be doing today. You see something in there, it wasn't there yesterday, it's not gone be there tomorrow. You stand at one of them doors thinking something's behind it—nothing's behind it. It's waiting for you upstairs, it's waiting for you downstairs. It's standing behind you. You think it's buried in the sand, why then, it's gone be standing behind that door after all! And you don't ever know what it is you looking for. You don't ever know what it is you gone see! Wasn't no ghost you saw, wasn't Martha Ann.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“He was being sought for.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“India returned to her kneading, but repeated under her breath, “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it!”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“Barbara, shut up,” said her son Luker. “You know very well why it’s a private funeral.” “Why?” “Because we are the only people in Mobile who would have come. There’s no point in advertising a circus when everybody hates the clown.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“At breakfast this morning I drank a whole glass of grapefruit juice and it wasn’t till after I had put it down in the sink that I thought about putting vodka in it. And if that’s not being cured, I don’t know what is!”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“Oh, law! This morning I look one day older than God and a year younger than water! Last night I didn’t close my eyes. At five o’clock this morning I was still awake in my bed, turning and tossing and thinking about Big D.” “Dallas?” “Dying, precious—Big D is death.”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals

“it didn’t make a damn bit of difference if he won or lost, he wasn’t gone be saddled with a wife who could drink more than a barnful of Irishmen”
― Michael McDowell, The Elementals