Relief Map Quotes

“She often thought about the power everybody had to ruin everybody else. You could do it by accident, just by showing up, or you could make the wrong decisions in such small pieces that by the time you realized what you were doing, it was too late.”
― Rosalie Knecht, Relief Map

“He would be her currency of intimacy. Many people might know little things about her but there would be very few in her whole life, she thought, who would hear her secret. It would always be with her, right there at her elbow. That was what made you grown-up, she thought: having the past following you around. Having a past at all, really.”
― Rosalie Knecht, Relief Map

“She began to hear her own blood hissing in her ears. She looked at the edge of the woods, the field going over the hill, the stand of walnut trees around the bedrock at the top, and none of it scratched out any sound to match the seething in her veins. Her aliveness was monumental and the world was faint and distant and dark”
― Rosalie Knecht, Relief Map

“She stood on packed earth; the grass grew knee-high beside the bare patch, and each blade of it, each angled stem and puff of seed, was perfectly still. She began to hear her own blood hissing in her ears. She looked at the edge of the woods, the field going over the hill, the stand of walnut trees around the bedrock at the top, and none of it scratched out any sound to match the seething in her veins. Her aliveness was monumental and the world was faint and distant and dark.

She had been like that for most of her adolescence, vivid to herself with the world muted and blurred around her. Now the world was thunderous. She pulled up a blade of grass and chewed on the end of it. The world was loud and close, and her heart and lungs and brain were a tinny afterthought.”
― Rosalie Knecht, Relief Map

“She had been like that for most of her adolescence, vivid to herself with the world muted and blurred around her. Now the world was thunderous. She pulled up a blade of grass and chewed on the end of it. The world was loud and close, and her heart and lungs and brain were a tinny afterthought.”
― Rosalie Knecht, Relief Map

“They had left their bags behind and they would be in trouble when they got home-the attendance secretary would have called. But they weren't in trouble yet. No one knew where the were. They hardly existed here; it was quiet, and though the shade was deep beneath the trees, the air was warm.”
― Rosalie Knecht, Relief Map

“The asphalt crumbled at the edges, turning to burr-filled weeds. It seemed entirely plausible, for a minute, that he could run and keep running forever. Pleasant, even. He climbed onto the bike”
― Rosalie Knecht, Relief Map

“She sat down in the leaves. She had a sudden sense of aloneness in her body, her flesh containing itself: she extended no further than her shoes in one direction, no further than her hair in the other. She pressed her shoulders and the back of her head against the wall and braced her arms across her knees. She closed her eyes, trying to think”
― Rosalie Knecht, Relief Map