The Grand Ballast Quotes

“The most effective chains were simple. They were guilt and ghosts.”
― J.A. Rock, The Grand Ballast

“That’s the scariest thing in the world to me. The idea that people will never ask anything more from me than mediocrity.”
― J.A. Rock, The Grand Ballast

“I want to be both for you: simple and a spectacle. I want to—to put on a show. But I need you to see me underneath. Whatever I wear or do or say, I want you to see me.”
― J.A. Rock, The Grand Ballast

“And maybe that’s all love ever was—just something you hung over loneliness, like a photograph put up just to cover a square of faded paint on a wall.”
― J.A. Rock, The Grand Ballast

“He saw life, in that instant, as a series of borrowings. You slopped together a brain from atomic mud, your cells clustered together and built you a frame, and you grew layers of flesh and draped it over your bones. You took vibrations from the air and made a voice; you drew light through your eyes and the world appeared like projector thrusting an image onto a dark screen. You learned rules, and your feelings shaped themselves into something beyond your control, a weapon you had to master if you had hoped to destroy anything specific.”
― J.A. Rock, The Grand Ballast