The Line That Held Us Quotes

“Empathy's not standing over a hole looking down and saying you understand. Empathy is having been in that hole yourself.”
― David Joy, The Line That Held Us

“That kind of love wasn’t for anyone outside the two of them. It was private and silent, sufficient as grace.”
― David Joy, The Line That Held Us

“You still can't see it and it's right in front of your eyes. It's the reason we're gathered here. The only reason we're here is because of the ones we loved. That the line that held us.”
― David Joy, The Line That Held Us

“What I'm saying is that it's easy to take the high road so long as there aren't any stakes. But the minute you've got something to lose, a man'll do all sorts of things.”
― David Joy, The Line That Held Us

“Dwayne understood that his brother was not meant for this place, that some people were born too soft to bear the teeth of this world. There was no place for weakness in a world like this. Survival was so often a matter of meanness.”
― David Joy, The Line That Held Us

“There are some things worth dying for and some things worth killing for and some things that could make a man do all sorts of things he never knew he was capable of until the time came to do them.”
― David Joy, The Line That Held Us

“For as tough as the men were in these mountains, the women had always been stone. They were used to loss, accustomed to never having enough. They were fit for the harshness of this world.”
― David Joy, The Line That Held Us

“You never had a mean bone in your body," Dwayne said as he looked across the floor to where his brother rested against the cobbled wall. And true as it was, the world's cruelty had found him just the same.”
― David Joy, The Line That Held Us

“His mind retreated to a place more familiar. There was a sergeant who told Thad the infantry were the hands of God, and that idea made sense to Thad because it was no different from what he had heard all his life growing up in the church. The old-timers said some prayers needed feet. But there was evil in this world that had to be strangled. And so it wasn't just a matter of giving those prayers legs. Sometimes a prayer needed hands just the same."
--Thad Broom, The Weight of This World”
― David Joy, The Line That Held Us

“The thing about Walmart was that even a man like Dwayne Brewer could go unnoticed. People pushed their buggies with dead-eyed stares, everything sliding by in the periphery. Consumerism scaled this large had a way of camouflaging class.”
― David Joy, The Line That Held Us