In the Country of the Blind Quotes

“Did you have to understand life to plunge in? Even kindness, when he encountered it, was a riddle half the time. If you walked into a door and bloodied your nose, it was one thing, but empathy for handicaps had never been his thing when he himself had none. Empathy had been for people of good cheer.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“The sexual license prevalent among {the} Sixties generation was deplorable, but no more so than predatory Capitalism, with cruel slums alongsideabsurd affluence: affluence which paid for...depictions of the Holy Family as a form of expiation. Love was the basis for what he believed. Promiscuity certainly violated that polestar, yet caring for others, even in "fooling around"--which was not to justify it--topped dog-eat-dog Capitalism.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“I'd like a break. I'm forty-six, so the undertow is beginning to get to me."
"Then what are you good for?" she asked, in a kind tone.
"Oh, a man around the house has his uses. A dildo; an ear to talk to; two arms around you; a voice from the next room when you're lonesome."
"I have a dog to talk to."
"That might be a deal killer.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“The whistling dawn, the sussurration of the leaves, a honking goose, and then a sentimental confab at the Solid Rock Gospel Church with a wounded soul who poured his heart out to Press precisely because he was blind and therefore harmless. Since these individuals had no money, he couldn't give them financial advice, just wholehearted sympathy. As at the commune, a toddler might scramble into his lap, and while he petted the child its mother held a cookie to its mouth and another one to his to bite and chew.
A world worth living in and for.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“She--the unnamed lady--simply drew his hands to the Paleolithic places men always have grown tumid from feeling, like the outward cradle of the hips within which a fetus will reside and her breasts that will nourish it, once born.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“Hard-bitten had a double meaning: bitten hard by life, like her, or clamping meanly down on other people. But, as though belying his thoughts, she said, "I hope your days are good."
"If only. My eyes, you know, are like Swiss cheese, the doctor says. I see through the holes.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“The milking machines sounded tranquilizing, and there was the collegiality of seventy animal spirits thriving, warming the barn with cud-chewing, nose-snuffling, and sisterly mammalhood.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“Don't be afraid of the dark." She tousled his hair tolerantly. "I've never known a man who wasn't scared of more things than I was.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“God is so cruel," she murmured reflectively, as though answering him.
"Yes," he admitted, from the vantage point of going blind. "Though maybe people are kinder if He made them that way."
"You've run with a different crowd. Rich people are nicer to rich people."
"Sure. Yes. That's why I've washed up here. Rich people couldn't have been nicer to me.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“As a customer's man, his best brokerage work was securing the old age of his clients: time for them to do what they wished.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“He couldn't work, as such, but needed to flex himself somehow in ways that felt like work, he thought. Lacking credentials and sight he could not teach, for example. Even reading a cold-call script would be out, although he'd heard of a resourceful blind man who went to the social security office and suggested, "Give me either a job or just my damned check," and received the former, skillfully handling mediation assignments.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“Men were so violent, she complained. Why were men so violent? You had to be careful as a woman. You could get somebody's nose broken if you griped that they had pinched you or even looked at you funny. And of course that wasn't what you wanted; you just wanted to be left alone. Also, you knew that the mean son of a bitch that broke the poor jerk's nose was just getting his rocks off--didn't care about you personally.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“Often eating took considerable extra time, since he could hardly see his food, groping with a fork or spoon, enforcedly omnivorous. "Blind men wear spotted pants," Dorothy teased, telling him to wash his...”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind

“What did you give your kids, besides a lottery of genes? A stance--that mix of bluff and confidence, backbone and wussiness that passes for personality or character. One talks less about ethics after third grade. Don't steal candy or hit other children, if they hadn't learned the costs of violence on their own.”
― Edward Hoagland, In the Country of the Blind