The Knowing Quotes

“the building. The fat man stopped in the doorway and looked up at the big water tower. “Have a nice day, ya’ll,” he said, and laughed. Or made a sound like laughter that had no mirth, no joy at all in it, a sound that was ugly, dark, and vulgar. Scott’s hands shook for half an hour after the two men left. He felt like he’d been in great danger, that he’d barely escaped with his life—though he’d never tell anybody that, because a simple description of what had happened sounded almost innocent. But Scott knew. He propped the door of the store open for the rest of the day to get the stink out of the building. CHAPTER 27 The banner stretched seventy-five feet across the floor of the Fellowship Hall, proclaiming “Dancing with the Stars” in bright red, sparkling letters. Well, they would sparkle as soon as Emily painted them with Elmer’s Glue and poured glitter on them. First she had to get the helium canister to work so she could finish filling the balloons. Every year, the church held a prom for handicapped teenagers. Emily was the chair of the committee that met on Saturdays to decorate. She loved the event,”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“Ever wonder who was the first person to see a cow and think, ‘I believe I’ll squeeze those dangly things and drink whatever comes out?’” Mikey”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“Time didn’t heal, it only blunted. After awhile, the loss didn’t slice you open with a switchblade, it hacked at you with a rusty Boy Scout hatchet. He”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“Please, God, no. The words brought Emily up short. It was a prayer, and she hadn’t prayed since…she”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“whatever that was. I’m so far out of my comfort zone UPS doesn’t even deliver here.” He”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“For centuries, everybody believed it, understood there’s a spiritual battle going on around us all the time.” She sighed. “The smartest thing Satan ever done was to get folks to believe he don’t exist.” She turned toward Andi. “But they’s those who do see the battle, folks who know. My Bishop knew. Looks like Andi does, too, now.” “Are you saying Andi can see…what? Demons?” Emily was incredulous. “Not only demons. Appears she’s been give eyes to see it all. What’s dark for the rest of us, she’s been give the light to see.” Jack”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“And the source of all that quiet and stillness was the old black woman and the little girl with bright blue eyes sitting in a puddle of stuffed animals on the bed. Their connectedness had stopped the world in its tracks.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“Jack wanted to ask a dozen questions, though he doubted he’d have been able to wrap words around any of them even if he had the chance—which he didn’t. Something had shifted in the room. An unnatural stillness had come over it. And it was quiet—absolutely silent—as if a giant had dropped a bell jar down on it.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“He is in a place that defines darkness, that produces darkness the way a lantern produces light. A dry hissing, rattling sound fills his ears and a musty, old-place smell fills his nostrils. But there’s a more putrid stench beneath. He can sense it there. Like pus in a boil about to burst, the stench and foulness is only contained by a thin membrane, and to break that membrane is to be totally overwhelmed by the rotting evil it’s holding back. There”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“He paused for only a moment in real time, but in soul time, the earth stopped, ceased spinning and revolving around the sun. On the other side of what he was about to say was a world he did not know, a reality he’d never even considered. And a door would slam shut behind him as soon as he spoke the new world into existence and he would never be able to return to the old one, the world of innocent trust and security and commitment. How did two people, two married people, relate in the world he was entering, where all the rules had been broken, the trust shattered, the vows abandoned? How did they make a place there, and make a place they must, because the world of innocence would be forever lost to them as soon as he spoke. “…you”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“He took a slow, deep breath, and rage/love/hurt/indignation and all the other feelings solidified and settled around him in a blanket of icy calm. “No”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“But his mind had recently become the passport of a world traveler—so many stamps from so many different places, there was not a single empty spot to put anything new.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“And the rest of it—the buzzing sound of the flat, green line—had echoed in his head all night long. Still echoed there now, a serpent of sound with its fangs buried so deep in his skull he feared he would hear that sound every waking moment for the rest of his life.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“Daniel sensed a horrible, unthinkable but coming and the doors to a thousand fears flew open in his mind.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“A hole opened up beneath Daniel. Just her name threatened to knock him over the edge into a place as dark as the other cavern in his mind, only this was not a place of frightened darkness. It bubbled and boiled with ugly, raging blackness veined with white-hot betrayal. In some real-world place, his wife was...while her daughter, their little girl lay on a hospital bed fighting for her life, Emily was in bed, too. A different kind.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“Pain and loss were here in the dark place. He’d been here before—you didn’t do ministry for almost fifteen years without seeing it all—death, disease, heartbreak. But from the other side, the comforting side, the God’s-ways-are-not-our-ways side where you left the accident scene or the ICU waiting room or the graveside and went home to a house that smelled of pot roast and cherry pie and rang with the laughter of a healthy child.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“He hadn’t just capped the shooter—he’d shot a little girl! Guilt would stitch this moment into his memory forever.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“A trim, silver-haired man, the captain carried himself like the Senior Senator from Somewhere, but every officer knew he was all hat and no cattle. A blowhard posturing in front of a mirror, the man’s staunch, resolute facade disguised a limitless capacity for spinelessness.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“Time didn’t heal, it only blunted. After awhile, the loss didn’t slice you open with a switchblade, it hacked at you with a rusty Boy Scout hatchet.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“Then Jack turned to examine the children. They were clustered together, white from terror, some crying, some catatonic, all with a look on their faces he’d seen before, a look of vacant, hollow-eyed shock occasioned by horror way beyond a child’s capacity to process. He’d seen it on children’s faces in Kosovo and Somalia and Rwanda. An older woman who must have been the teacher’s aide stood in the center of them like Mother Goose and they clung to her skirt for comfort. She gazed at Jack with such profound wonder and gratitude, he was suddenly embarrassed.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“My mama always did say my big mouth was gonna get me in trouble one of these days.” Though his insides were trembling like Jell-o hit with a fork and his heart was thumping so hard his vision pulsed, Bishop’s voice was firm, didn’t shake. He was glad of that. A man had ought to die with as much dignity as the circumstances allowed.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“A memory elbowed its way past Bishop’s fear and stood defiant in the forefront of his mind. Bishop Washington never forgot a face.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“Misery may love company,” he said, “but lunacy truly thrives on companionship.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“I’m so far out of my comfort zone UPS doesn’t even deliver here.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“The smartest thing Satan ever done was to get folks to believe he don’t exist.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“thought you hadn’t ought to mourn ’cause he was “in a better place.” Shoot, she wasn’t grieving for the place Bishop was; she was grieving for the place he wasn’t.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“She put her face in her hands and tried to cry, like you want to throw up when you’s nauseated cause even though that’s awful, it feels better for a little while after. Gives you some relief. But Theresa’s hurt was too big right now to ’low her solace as simple and freeing as tears.”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing

“she’d”
― Ninie Hammon, The Knowing