Some Luck Quotes

“She could not have created this moment, these lovely faces, these candles flickering, the flash of the silverware, the fragrances of the food hanging over the table, the heads turning this way and that, the voices murmuring and laughing. She looked at Walter, who was so far away from her, all the way at the other end of the table, having a laugh with Andrea, who had a beautiful suit on, navy blue with a tiny waist and white collar and cuffs. As if on cue, Walter turned from Andrea and looked at Rosanna, and they agreed in that instant: something had created itself from nothing—a dumpy old house had been filled, if only for this moment, with twenty-three different worlds, each one of them rich and mysterious.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“contemplate the difference between a reason and an excuse. A reason is its own reward, but an excuse leads to disappointment every time.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“was born on your birthday!” “Yup,” said Eloise. “March 13.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“how does the devil get into you like that?”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“he hadn’t had her as a teacher, which meant that he could tell her what”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“the two of them prayed to Jesus that they might learn their lessons sooner rather than later, and that they would be gentle lessons rather than hard lessons.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“not to borrow trouble by worrying about it.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“He trusted only Devers, and why was that? Devers said, “We’re going here,” and they went there. Devers said, “Expect this and that,” and this and that came to pass. But the rumor was that Ike didn’t like Devers, and Frank figured this was the reason—Devers didn’t have his head up his ass, and everyone else did.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“not unlike a bomb blast, two years after that, where was he, northern France, if you called Cambrai France (some people didn’t, they called it “Kamerijk”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“hands behind his head. He took another deep breath. The whore”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“She could not imagine what she could do to reconstruct all the things she enjoyed, and she could hardly remember what it was that she had enjoyed.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“Lord would provide, as he had all along,”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“I’m sorry. I would have to disagree. The most important thing is getting right with the Lord, and then he”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“experience, that was true of everyone, even Joey, who hardly ever tried to get away with anything, but had killed a bluebird with the slingshot Frank had given him and gotten away with it—Mama did not allow them to shoot at songbirds. Frank himself got away with so many things that he expected to do whatever he pleased, and he did.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“Mama said that there was not going to be a bank robbery—the Lord wouldn’t allow it. Frank didn’t see why not, and Papa seemed to agree with him—he said, “Well, he’s allowed plenty of ’em.” Mama said that sometimes Satan got away with things and sometimes he didn’t,”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“town. Denby. Population two hundred and fourteen.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“His mother felt that the Sundays may have been a very unfortunate family, and that certainly life was harder in those days during and after the War Between the States, and you had to make your way as best you could, God knew, and Mary Jane Sunday, who had been a Corey, had done the best she could,”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“But she could only remember that it was good, not how it felt.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“The state fair was all very well, but it shouldn’t be the last thing you saw in your life. At first you thought of people like Eloise and Frank and Lillian as runaways, and then, after a bit, you knew they were really scouts.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“she had a cloth in her hands. She said, “Frankie hungry?”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“surprised. Then everyone, by unspoken”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“JOE COULDN’T STAND the noise. The giant room they”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“The pastor boomed out again: “My friends, who can say where it will end? Who can say when the Lord will at last be pleased with us?”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“woman, and child offend him? I doubt it. I am sure there were good Nephilim and kind Nephilim like my cousin. They were, it is said, the sons of God, as are you and I. But they were sensuous and irresponsible, and so God saved Noah and his sons and their families, and he saved some animals, and he smashed the rest.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“And so he is sending us warning after warning. Did every single Nephilim man,”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“hurricane down in Florida somewhere. Who in Iowa thought about Florida? People in Iowa had problems of their own—maybe not dust storms like the ones out in Nebraska and Oklahoma,”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“no matter how hard she tried to love them equally and for themselves, as Jesus loved all the little children, was now not the favorite. She thought of a phrase from the Bible—where, she did not know—“In all that has happened to”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“will provide.” She cleared her throat.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“Solidarity is the most important thing. The bosses and the bankers have it. We have to have it, too.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“Holiday Association.”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck