We Run the Tides Quotes

“I run to the water's edge and the cold ocean licks my toes. Without touching my face I can feel that it's wet with fog and tears and sweat. I stand there, on the cusp of the ocean and listen to its loud inhale. And then it recedes and takes everything from my childhood with it the porcelain dolls, the tap-dancing shoes, the concert ticket stubs, the tiny trophies, and the long, long swing.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“We are thirteen, almost fourteen, and these streets of Sea Cliff are ours.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“Lazlo's mom, Ágota, and my dad had a falling out over the kinds of things siblings usually have falling outs over: money and love. My father made money and Aunt Ágota lost money. Then there was disagreement about how their mother, my grandmother, should live. My father thought a retirement home. Ágota wanted to be paid to take care f her. The argument didn't help anyone. In the end, my grandmother died anyway.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“Sometimes we watch Bill Murray movies with him and his friends at his house on Sea View Terrace and marvel at the way the boys can recite all the lines the way we know every word of The Outsiders.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“We are thirteen, almost fourteen, and these streets of Sea Cliff are ours. We walk these streets to our school perched high over the Pacific and we run these streets to the beaches, which are cold, windswept, full of fishermen and freaks. We know these wide streets and how they slope, how they curve toward the short, and we know their houses.”
― vendela vida, We Run the Tides

“You were always so into reading your stories,” she says. And you were so into making up yours, I want to say. But we’ve grown up now, and so I refrain.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“We grew up very near each other,” Maria Fabiola says. This is what it’s come to. I am a childhood neighbor, nothing more.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“How do you two know each other?” he asks, and for a moment I’m speechless. My husband knew Maria Fabiola’s name by our third date.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“And I feel as I did when I was thirteen—that her laughter is a reward, that her attention is a prize.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“For a moment I am taken out of time and place—I could be a schoolgirl on China Beach, gossiping with my best friend.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“She’s almost fifty and her smile is still a precious reward.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“Her nonchalance unnerves me.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“She can’t wink with just one eye, so she shuts both her eyes, and for a moment it looks like she’s making a wish.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“I think I got used to the glitter Maria Fabiola put on everything.” What I didn’t admit to Faith then was sometimes I missed the glitter, too.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“The geography of California was so embedded in my past, in my missteps, that I decided I had to flee.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“Symphonies of tiny violins play themselves to shreds.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“stand there, on the cusp of the ocean and listen to its loud inhale. And then it recedes and takes everything from my childhood with it—the porcelain dolls, the tap-dancing shoes, the concert ticket stubs, the tiny trophies, and the long, long swing.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“Her hair is parted in the middle, but other than that she looks disappointingly unlike a hippie today.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“I feel betrayed by my femininity.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“In the bathroom, I see someone who looks like me but is paler and bloated.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“As we cruise smoothly and steadily through the night, it feels like we’re on a boulevard built only for us.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“The anchor has a serious expression on her face—the situation requires it, of course—but I can perceive a bit of excitement behind her eyes.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“He looks disappointed that it’s me. Maybe he was expecting a journalist.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“Instead she carries an L.L.Bean canvas tote bag with her everywhere.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“She says that you were all molded into being replicas of one another. She says the only way out was to be extraordinary.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“I hope my girls don't grow up to be models," Maria Fabiola says. But there is something in her voice that implies that this will be difficult to fight-their beauty will pull them inexorably toward modelhood.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“How do you feel?" Ewa asks.

"Betrayed."

"By who?" she says.

"Whom," I say.

"Who?"

"I feel betrayed by my femininity.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“People tell me I look skinny when they want something from me. What does she want from me?”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“We love you," my dad says, and mother nods. My mother my shows her love in every way possible but has a hard time saying the word. My dad and I have had many conversations about why this might be; we think it's because she's lost so many people she's said the word "love" to. Half her family is dead.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides

“the four of us become like paper dolls-we are always together, connected.”
― Vendela Vida, We Run the Tides