The House Quotes

“If they were both mute, they could have a happy life.”
― Bentley Little, The House

“Love wasn’t perfect, she realized. It didn’t cure all ills and didn’t solve all problems and wasn’t always what was needed. It also wasn’t equal. There was a hierarchy of love, some people you loved more than others, and it did make a difference. Sometimes just loving someone was not enough. Sometimes you had to love someone enough.”
― Bentley Little, The House

“It was a strange facet of human nature, but horror was much more frightening on a small scale than a large one.”
― Bentley Little, The House

“Being here reminded him of what he’d thought as a child, what he’d planned, and the realization that the future he’d been so eagerly awaiting had already passed left him somewhat heavy-hearted. For the first time in his life, he truly felt his age.”
― Bentley Little, The House

“The Ones Who Went Before.” The name, with its ambiguity and intimations of tremendous age, frightened him, and he listened quietly as Mr. Billings described the early days, after the barrier was erected, the days of miracles, when gods and monsters roamed the earth, when seas were parted, when oracles foretold the future, when miraculous beings and the resurrected dead mingled with ordinary men. After the House became occupied, he explained, as it gained strength and became more efficient, more attuned to its purpose, those “leaks” were plugged, all access to the Other Side was sealed off.”
― Bentley Little, The House

“He looked down at the enclosed Xerox, started reading: From Thomas Jefferson’s Diary: April 15 I am Awake again well before Dawn because of that Infernal Dream engendered by the Figure Shown to Me by Franklin. It is the Fifth Time I have Had the Dream. Did I not Know Franklin so well, I would Believe Him a Practitioner of Witchcraft and the Black Arts. The Doll, if Doll it Be, Appeared to be Made from Twigs and Straw and Pieces of Human Hair and Toe-nail. The Totality was Glued together by what seemed an Unsavory Substance that Franklin and I Took to be Dried Seed from the Male Sex. Franklin Claims that He has Seen a Similar Figure in his Travels although He Cannot Remember Where. For My Part, I would Never have Forgotten such an Object or Whence I first Discovered It, as I Will Not Forget It Now. Against My Wishes and Advice, Franklin has Taken the Doll into his House. He Intends to Keep It in his Study so that He may Perform some of his Experiments upon It. I Bade Him Leave it in the Spirit House in which He Discovered It, but Franklin is not a Man who Takes Readily to Suggestion. I am Frightened for Franklin and, indeed, for All of Us. At the bottom of the diary entry was a detailed piece of artwork in Jefferson’s own hand. A detailed rendering that was clearly identifiable and instantly recognizable. It was a drawing of the house.”
― Bentley Little, The House

“A deist, perhaps, like Thomas Jefferson, an adherent to the clockmaker theory. He believed that God had created everything, had set it in motion, but was now on to other projects and other planets, trusting his creation to run in the way he’d intended and not deigning to bother in the affairs of men.”
― Bentley Little, The House

“You get more spiritual as you get older,” Hal said. “I don’t know if it’s because you get scared since you’re closer to death, or because you’re actually wiser than you used to be, but you start thinking about spiritual things, wondering why we’re here, what the point of it all is, whether there’s anything else.”
― Bentley Little, The House

“There comes a point, she thought, when what you do as a temporary stopgap until you “find” yourself hardens into your actual personality. The person you pretended to be, while waiting to discover who you are, becomes the real you.”
― Bentley Little, The House