Inheritance Quotes

“You've gotten to play big fish in this little pond, but you don't' know what it is to be a bottom feeder in a place like this.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Something unnamable fit between them and for now it was too delicate to put words to. Even if Lars spoke better English.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Her skin smelled like orange and vinegar and bleach and sweat--a curious and honest combination. Bared down to herself: the woman who made something of messes; who scrubbed off sins and carelessness to the bright, new thing beneath.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Nothing passes in a small town.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“And his eyes weren't so gray; really were blue, after all. Really were quite bright and deep and brilliantly blue--like a summer sky or the ocean, she'd wager, though she had not seen the ocean. Had never seen anything, anything so blue as his eyes...”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“As a rule I don't fuck about with fellows who were in the Philippines.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Don't say much, do you?"
Lars shrugged. "My English."
"Yeah, your English, but you ain't much for talking regardless. I can tell."
Lars offered a thin smile. "People can always tell."
"What's that mean?"
"People say...much to me, because...eh...they know I do not stop them.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Some people said their mothers were the glue that held the family together; others called them the backbone. But Mama was the tendons. The nerves. The supple, giving fat---

Mama would not have liked the comparison. Dalton kept it to himself. And still, rather saw it as a compliment. Mama had softened the blows. Cushioned sharp bones from grinding into one another. Encompassed every strange and contrary part of their family like a warm blanket. Filled in the gaps.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“And Lars thought of himself. Of the vast, gaping cave within him, black like pitch. Dark like the morgue beneath Monson's department store. Windowless and secret and clammy and ignored.[...] And Lars' stomach churned, wretched ill, because for the first time he realized he was filled throat to gut with formaldehyde. Mildred said he was the undertaker, but that wasn't true.
He was the morgue.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“To close your lips to a horror was to give it shelter and make it yours.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“He thought about it; reprieve in a paradise far removed from the cold and the wind and the unbroken horizon. A world so warm and turquoise-resplendent that it wouldn't matter, really, that he'd spent all this time loving a woman [...] who hated him.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“I have never cared about the money."
He scoffed. "The only people dumb enough to say that are people who never been poor.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Woman, they'll write 'she shouldn't have' on your goddamn gravestone.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“People liked to poke fun at Mildred Eklund. They talked about the men she slept with and what a shame it was Rachel got all the looks in the family. But Lars didn't think she was so unfortunate. Her arms were strong, scouring away the grime and the memory of a terrible thing done on that spot. And she was strong, just for getting down on the floor in this room. Just for being the one who took up the brush and scrubbed it away.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“You know, I used to think that the word of a woman who'd made a mistake was worth more than the word of a man with good reason to deny it. But you and Harold set me straight that night. Nobody believes a woman. They ain't allowed to make mistakes.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Mein Gott, Mrs. Windham. You may look like your Polish mother, but you have the icy heart of a fucking Viking.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“People always talked about Rachel Eklund's beauty; Jerry had never really seen what all the fuss was about. He thought she was a nice-looking woman, but that was all--nice. There was something mundane in her symmetry; nothing especially interesting in features everyone seemed to approve of. He'd never thought much of her until that moment in her father's parlor, with him bled to death in the dining room.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“That old Golden Rule, "you reap what you sow" nonsense--
I've got a problem with that. This idea you choose what you put into the world and it comes back just as you expect. Sow good, reap good. Sow evil, reap evil. Like we've got our pick of every seed sack in the world. But we don't have our pick, do we? No man gets to choose his talents, or his advantages. You do the best you can with what you got. But it's still just..birthright and happenstance. Bad luck and rotten seed.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Never in her life had she seen him this way--without that smirking assurance in his mouth. In his eyes. In his shoulders. He looked like another man; like a boy. Like a poor, beaten little boy no one had ever actually loved; an orphan in a Jacob Riis photograph, patched trousers, smudge-faced.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Harold polished off his glass and looked at Cole. Bright eyes, broad smile. And he laughed. He laughed the hardest and strangest Rachel had ever seen him laugh, reminding her of a jack-o'-lantern. A Halloween ghoul. He laughed until he wheezed, and then he poured himself another drink. And said nothing more about it.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Haven't you learned by now? Fathers and sons are always against one another. Me against mine. You against yours. Cole against his. Hell, Thomas against you. The only way it's ever, ever been. You put your blood and name on a man, you better expect at some point he's going to fight to make it his own. You either give in and become like your father, or you make a different man of yourself--but you don't get through it without a fight.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“I knew the delights of champagne would lure you from the Methodists' clutches.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Cause baby, there's nothing I like being called more than a fool. It's a word that rots [...] So that when later, a body gets proved wrong, and has to come back around and eat their words--it's a sick, vile ol' word to choke down.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“She felt neither the shimmering, aching thrill of kissing Cole nor the reckless confusion of being with Mr. Schubert. But rather grounded herself on the promise of a warm, humming tedium as simple, as predictable as Bill himself.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“I bet you were thrilled when the Lusitania went down. You probably drank a whole keg and danced til your legs gave out. Because I know you ain't a Methodist, Pa. Not really.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“I rather like the shape of the sheath dress," he said thoughtfully. "And corsets are a dastardly inconvenience when you're in a hurry...But I like them, I think, overall. It's like Christmas. The presents with the tight knots and sparkling wrappers are by far the most exciting to unwrap.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Dancing only leads to sinning."
Cole grinned. "Well, friend, I surely hope so.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Over time the sun dazzled away her anger and left her feeling bright, and warm, and optimistic.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“You see, it doesn't matter what it takes to have something lovely and wild; it doesn't even matter that you've crushed it into something ordinary, so long as it's under your boot where it belongs...”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“What is it about men? We see something fresh and pure--when the snow falls, we can't help it. We rush for our boots and go tromping about until it's brown and muddy.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance