The Flying Troutmans Quotes

“If, along the way, something is gained, then something will also be lost.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

“Conversing with children is a fine art.... An art form that demands large amounts of both honesty and misdirection. Or maybe discretion is a better word.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

“I couldn't see him but I could hear him snoring softly, humming, like a little airplane lost in the clouds.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

“She was a strange, unsettled planet that had had once sustained life. She was a language that I had thought I almost understood even though I couldn't speak it. She hadn't always been this way. She used to wear high knee socks and short shorts and tube tops, and travel everywhere on roller skates.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

“It's impossible to move through the stages of grief when a person is both dead and alive, the way Min is. It's like she's living permanently in an airport terminal, moving from one departure lounge to another but never getting on a plane. Sometimes I tell myself that I'd do anything for Min. That I'd do whatever was necessary for her to be happy. Except that I'm not entirely sure what that would be.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

“The guy's name was Colt.
Colt, said Thebes. Like a baby, male horse?
I guess, said the guy, or a gun.
Well, which do you prefer? she said.
What do you mean? he asked.
Like, how do you prefer to think of yourself? As a baby, male horse?
No, he said, he didn't really like to think of himself that way.
Well, then, as a gun? she said.
No, not really, he said. He preferred basically not to think of himself at all.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

“We were making good time now, barrelling through the bodacious curves of southeastern Utah and ignoring all impending signs of trouble with the van. At least I was.
"You guys happy?" I said.
The kids smiled at me like I was a dog chasing my tail, sweet but stupid, and looked away.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

“Later that evening I lay down in Min's empty bed upstairs and pulled her white sheet up over my head. I felt for my kneecaps and hip bones. I lay perfectly still, arms down, palms up. I closed my eyes and pretended I was floating in space, then at sea, then not floating at all.I hummed an old Beach Boys tune. In my room... Min had taught me how to play it on her guitar when we were kids.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

“When we got back to the house Logan grabbed his basketball, threw it really hard against the hallway wall, knocked the framed family photo to the floor-it didn't break, he didn't pick it up-and left with a couple of his friends. Thebes picked up the photo, hung it back on the wall, sighed heavily like she'd travelled to every corner of the world, on her knees, with a knife in her back and a boa constrictor wrapped around her chest, and then made us a couple of blueberry smoothies.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

“Maybe she was enjoying a moment in her life, a sliver of light, a flash memory of one of her kids, something sweet and approaching reality.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

“When I opened up the bottle of wine, Thebes said whoa, you yanked that cork out of there like you were saving it from drowning. She got out her markers and drew a screaming face on the cork.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans

“Everything in life, except her kids, made her impatient. She had tried to do a million things. She'd wanted to be a documentary filmmaker and then a painter and then a tiny-ceramic-figure maker. None of it panned out. She'd be full of enthusiasm at first, full of big ideas and energy and drive, but it would all gradually evaporate and disappear. She could never maintain the momentum or the concentration or the confidence she needed to get anything done.”
― Miriam Toews, The Flying Troutmans