The Long Gray Goodbye Quotes

“A delicate scent hung in the air as we strolled down the long boulevard toward the Opera House holding hands. Paris had come to life in a very special way, the lights of the Eiffel Tower a gentle reminder that nothing mattered once that starry blanket covered the great city, except love. Love was the reason Paris existed. For those lonely in their soul, their heart a barren wasteland starving for nourishment, she offered hope. For those like Caroline and I, lucky enough to have found each other and begin the healing process to repair our brokenness, Paris was a bastion to love's transforming power. A year ago I could not have pictured myself holding hands with someone as nice as Caroline, as lovely and unpretentious. She was pretty, but her soul made her beautiful. I loved everything about her, including her damage.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“Sorry we couldn't be of more help," Caroline said with genuine feeling. "It was an awful way to die." He looked at Caroline, his face acknowledging the truth of her statement. Not quite a smile, just an indication of sad agreement. "All ways of dying are awful to the one leaving,”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“When Candida blew, she’d really blew, so the falling debris had mostly been too small to do any real damage to the rest of the boats in the marina. Other than a few minor cuts and bruises suffered by those folks stupid enough to look up at the sky and wait for it to rain wood and fiberglass and aluminum down on them rather than run for cover, no one had been hurt; no one ever said being able to afford a boat and marina fees made a person smart.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“They were kidding each other, a camaraderie which probably had its beginnings during the fight. It was like that sometimes.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“Some places, such as Paris, have a magic best experienced for brief periods so the romantic feeling doesn’t become tainted by a day to day reality. But Mykonos was different in that respect. Mykonos made you long for the restful, happy day to day reality of life on the Greek island, and it was the brief visits that tortured the soul. Paris was a romantic respite from life, Mykonos was life itself, and living. I understood why Susan had made a home for herself on Mykonos.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“Jeanette smiled tenderly at Caroline and then at me. Laura reached out and placed her hand on Caroline’s cheek. She said, “There is no pain so great that God cannot heal it. Believe me, I know.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“Sort of like the Skipper in Gilligan’s Island if Alan Hale, Jr. had been about fifteen pounds lighter and had sported dark, wavy hair. He even wore one of those white caps like him.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“He nodded. "And did not take off from any official airport." The more formal English, the did nots and could nots rather than didn't and can't, were hallmarks of those using English as their second or third language.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“But that was over there, in Greece. This was Mykonos, a seaside sanctuary so timeless that I half expected to glimpse Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings walking along the dock as we disembarked from the ferry.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“Even with all Caroline had lost and forgotten, she knew a lot about archaeology and past civilizations. I often wondered if knowing all those things, only saddened her that she couldn’t remember the rest. Though she had made peace with her life, it wasn’t the first time I’d pondered whether deep down she might need a sense of normalcy that having a brick and mortar home would give her.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“The most important reason I’d changed my plan, however, had been Caroline. Jerry Carmichael’s complete lack of human decency, as well as any sense of parental responsibility — much less love — had shaken her. I’d been up-close-and-personal with a hundred guys like Jerry Carmichael. They had jaded me about human beings and what they were capable of. Nothing that had come out of Jerry’s mouth shocked me; surprised me, perhaps, but not shocked me. Caroline knew what people were capable of too, but her personality and her sunshine-and-wonder approach to life usually managed to keep those thoughts at bay. She needed to get Jerry out of her system.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“Night had fallen on Manta by the time we awoke and a cooling breeze was rustling the palm fronds of the tree outside our window. We could hear laughter below as the nightlife of Manta got underway. Girls dressed for clubbing were leaving the hotel hoping to have their world rocked after a night of dancing and wake up to discover he really was Prince Charming in disguise. In truth he would be the tatted-up, dumbed-down, self-involved bad-boy they’d been drawn to like a moth to a flame after several drinks, because he was the male mirror-image of them. The tap-tap of high-heeled shoes designed to accentuate the girls’ derrieres sounded like an ancient tribal mating song being drummed out on concrete.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“I hadn’t seen Krista Wallace for several years and the emotions it stirred when I did set eyes on her again surprised me. We had been a summer fling on the beaches of Ecuador, a brief yet sweet encounter before my intoxicating affair with Josselyn began. Perhaps the intensity of the latter had unfairly overshadowed the former.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“A tall, leggy French girl on her way to work was looking at her phone and almost walked into me as I crossed the street. I dodged her just in time and she glanced back to give me a dirty look. How dare I not realize the importance of her early morning text message. I wondered how humanity managed to work and accomplish things before our time in history; the invention of electricity, the radio and the light bulb; creating the combustion engine and then building roads for people to travel on; creating aircraft so mankind could travel faster between great cities they planned and built; the industrial revolution; NASA landing a man on the moon; the invention of the microwave so single guys could make TV dinners and not starve. How had mankind managed it all without texting each other every five minutes? Or had they been able to accomplish all these things because they didn’t have this frivolous distraction disconnecting them from dreaming and inventing, and human interaction?”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“I reached over and she fell into my arms. “You have me. You’ll always have me. We’ll live forever, you and me.” I heard her sniffle and then felt her laugh against my chest. She wrested herself gently from my arms.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“Sonny had to get rid of her once he found out, of course, but by then he’d already begun to grow weary of her. She was one of those save-the-trees, stop-global-warming, Che-is-cool-and-so-is-Obama kind of nitwits liberal universities churn out like chocolate kisses at a Hershey plant nowadays.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“What I remembered best, however, was a darkly sensual Ecuadorian girl as tender, hungry and insatiable as any I'd ever encountered. She was engaged to one of the Ecuadorian airport personnel but from the moment our eyes met as she lay in a hammock at a barbecue thrown to help everyone get acquainted, we knew we were going to be lovers. Even though her boyfriend was there that day, we found a way to get close.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“The late afternoon sky over Paris imparted a softer glow to the city, hinting in a lover’s whisper to be patient with her, because the romantic heaven of Paris by night was only a few hours away, and would be worth the wait.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye

“What a magnificent girl. She is spring, in all its glory.” He shook his head. “I have seen and done so much, my friend, I wonder if I will ever experience spring again. Perhaps I am too far into autumn and only winter remains for me.”
― Bobby Underwood, The Long Gray Goodbye