The Chicken Sisters Quotes

“The spaces around us reflect the spaces inside us, and when those things don’t go together, that’s how we know we need to make a change.”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“Did wanting something more mean you regretted everything that led to what you’d got?”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“She shaded in more of the tornado, a little fiercely, then turned back a few pages and let herself be pulled into the world of Carleen, the least popular chicken in her high school, pecked down by plumper hens and scorned by cocky roosters.
Carleen's story wasn't hers. Amanda had been quite well liked in high school---mostly because she stayed resolutely in the middle of the road, dressing like everyone else, doing the things everyone else did. Amanda had made those choices thanks to Mae, who had already made all the mistakes. Unlike Mae, Amanda did exactly what was expected of her and not anything more. She was a good girl.
Carleen was not a good girl. She was the dark chicken of her small town, pulling the other chicks in with her schemes and plans when they were young, then finding herself alone as a teenage chicken with a lot to prove and only her mysterious telekinetic powers, powers the others in the flock didn't share, to do it with. Carleen had been thoroughly rejected and cruelly humiliated by her peers, and would continue to be until she allowed the forces within her to burst free---at prom, of course, in homage to Carrie, one of Amanda's favorite books---and annihilate the chickens around her in a rampage of oil and flames.
Carleen, Amanda thought, would end her prom night with a fried chicken dinner.”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“Good fried chicken was remarkably hard to come by in New York, but this---tender, with just enough crust-only bits protruding, skin peeling easily away from the meat---this was good. The fries were thin and still hot, some with crunch, some with bite, lightly sprinkled with the salt blend they'd always used. The biscuits were fresh and flaky, and the salad's iceberg lettuce was dressed in Mimi's trademark sweet oil dressing---a closely guarded (but really very simple, and once very common) recipe.”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“The next morning, when she bent to buckle Ryder into the taxi to go to the airport, he was clutching the chicken tightly to his chest, looking so much like his father that it made Mae catch her breath with a combination of fear and love. "Daddy told me to take special care of my chicken," her said. "We gave it a new name, not just Chicken." He paused, then pronounced the name carefully. "Raw-lings. We called it Rawlings."
Damn.”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“Jay got up and walked to the trash to scrape off his plate, but when the trash can popped open, he stopped and reached in. Mae got cold inside. Shit. That was where she had put everything from her satisfying clear-out earlier in the day, and she hadn't covered up the things she was discarding with other trash, as she usually did. Damn it! She knew exactly what was coming. Jay stood up with a ratty stuffed chicken in his hand.
"You can't throw this away. Ryder loves this."
He did, but Mae hated it. The little stuffed chicken---a gift from her sister when Ryder was born---had grown gray and smelly and was beyond washing, and Mae had been able to slip it away from Ryder's bed for several nights running. With the trip, she figured he would forget about it, although she'd felt a tiny twinge of regret as she'd stuffed it into the trash can. It was just that it was so gross now, and there were so many stuffies. If she didn't get rid of them, they'd take over.
"He doesn't care about it. Not really," she said. It sounded weak, even to her. "It's so filthy, Jay. He's little. He'll like other things. It's just junk, anyway."
Jay turned on her. "You don't always get to decide what's junk, Mae. You don't get to pick and choose everything we have and everything we do and everywhere we go."
"I don't. Just---some things. And it's not the same."
Throwing away a toy was not the same as making all their life decisions---and how could she not make decisions right now, when everything Jay wanted to do felt so precarious? Couldn't he see that they wanted the same things, for the world to stay nice and safe and solid around Madison and Ryder and around themselves? She knew Jay had moved around a lot as a kid, and that at least once his dad had handed him a shoebox and told him if it didn't fit in there, it couldn't come. But sometimes you had to get rid of those things, even things you once loved, to make room for better things.
And sometimes you made mistakes. Don't bring up the baseball glove. Don't bring up the baseball glove.
She hadn't known the baseball glove was a perfectly worn-in classic Rawlings. Or that Jay had been hoping Madison or Ryder might use it someday. All she'd seen was that it was old. And kinda moldy. She honestly hadn't thought he would notice it was gone.”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“Mimi's and Frannie's both served fried chicken, yes. And they had the same kind of name. And they had been started by sisters. But from there, the similarities---and any competition---ended. Frannie's was open all day, with an extensive menu. Mimi's offered only dinner: chicken, biscuits, French fries, and salad, and off-the-menu doughnuts on Saturday mornings for those in the know. And of course pie, but only when the spirit moved her mother to bake.”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“The restaurants are very different, by asking which you like. The restaurants are very different, Mimi's is pretty simple and BYOB while Frannie's has a bar. Some people go to Mimi's because they really love the pie but it's better to go to Frannie's if you have someone in your family who is a picky eater or vegetarian because they will be able to find something that isn't chicken. Chicken Frannie's has fried mozzarella and cheesecake.”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“You always get what you want, Mae. Always.”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“Why is it so hard for us to figure out what we actually want?”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“Helping my mom clean up—and coming back to Mimi’s and my hometown—have kind of done the same for me.”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“I’m asking myself, Amanda, and what Gus might ask, or Frankie, is—does that mean there’s something I could do to lose you?”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“Action is the best cure for anxiety,” Mae declared, hopping”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters

“Once she left her mother’s house, she built her whole life around clean space, calm mind, and it worked.”
― K.J. Dell'Antonia, The Chicken Sisters