Henry, Himself Quotes

“Just contemplating the energy required to make small talk tired him.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“Like a funeral, a birthday wasn't yours but for the people who loved you.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“There was mystery at the heart of any of marriage, secrets even people close to it would never know.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“Late in life, after his mother had died, his father cried at baptisms and funerals and sappy movies on TV, age stripping away a final protective layer. Now Henry could feel the same softening taking place inside him, a helpless grief for the past and boundless pity for the world, and that was right too. No fool like an old fool.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“While she was away, he'd forgotten how powerfully she broadcast her feelings, filling the house like a kind of nerve gas.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“Her anger was the fuel she used to keep going.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“The single dinner plate, the silent house, the tumbler in the sink--this was how it would be if he lost her. His mother had gone quickly, from liver cancer, the mass discovered too late. He thought of his father alone in his condo, crossing off days on the calendar like a prisoner. He'd survived her by thirteen years, yet every time Henry saw him, he quoted her as if they'd just spoken. Henry could picture himself doing the same to the children. He already lived too much in his memory.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“Being agreeable didn't make people less difficult.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“On that question Henry kept his opinion to himself. It was all speculation anyway. People were going to do what they were going to do. After a certain age he’d ceased to believe he might influence their lives.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“Theirs was a private language, not shared with the rest of the world, and so exempt from censure, sheer burlesque.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“A gift was what another person thought of you, and over the years he'd come to understand, by consensus, that his children saw him as someone who wore a tie to work, used power tools, played golf and drank scotch, which, while all true, seemed a superficial view of him. And yet when asked directly, he couldn't say what he wanted. Nothing.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“The trees were budding, bright clouds sailing through a too-blue sky, and though he knew it wasn’t true, he had a sense of the world turning, and him along with it. He saw it as a promise.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“the idea of luck and happiness. How much of life was accidental and how much was work, and practically,”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“While a necessary lesson, it was always a disappointment to discover he wasn't the fastest or smartest or best at everything.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“Who knew what happened in a marriage, what bargains and compromises people struck?”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“solitary golfers struck him as a squirrelly, self-involved breed, like hermits or fly fishermen.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself

“He’d have to cut it up and bag the pieces, another chore.”
― Stewart O'Nan, Henry, Himself