Running the Light Quotes

“Billy Ray knew scary men and they didn’t wear visors. This man had never been in a fight in his life. Billy Ray could feel it, it was like a smell: the bravery of ignorance. This man had never been dominated by another. He’d never known the crude intimacy of violence, never felt the fear of laying on his back wondering if the boot would come to his temple or his throat. He was weak, of a generation of false vipers.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“There is a version of us inside of our minds that does not correspond to our actuality, an idea of who we are that is unaffected by time or reality. Then, one day, you are confronted by the person you really are, the you you have become, the one who exists in the world, the one that breathes and shits and screams. And you realize: the people we think we are may never have existed. You were an idea, steam or smoke or wax. You destroyed the man you remember and in his place is you. You have become a stranger to yourself. You have become an impostor in your own skin.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“Im buried but I learned to breathe the dirt.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“Maybe I should get a dog, he thought. But then he remembered that he was never home and that a dog was one more thing he couldn’t have.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“Youth doesn’t perish, it mutes.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“Things had never been his thing. He spent his money on more immediate gratifications.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“In cities, no matter the night of the week, the party never had to end, but out in the Rest of It, in the remote blank nowheres, the night had a way of dying just when he was feeling the most alive.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“With stand-up, Billy Ray was only happy on stage. He lived for the hour; the rest of his life was just filler. Abeyance.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“Do you remember before we forgot how to love each other? When you were my everything? Do you remember me when I was me? Because I remember you and you were beautiful. We were beautiful.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“​More was the name of the game. More liquor. More blow. More more. His yearning was frantic. It howled like wind through the holes in his brain. He longed to penetrate and excrete, to fuck and be fucked, to violate, to be ruined.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“What the fuck did you think was gonna happen coming up here? Did you think it was gonna be cake and ice cream? Even you’re not that dumb. You ruined me”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light: A Novel

“Billy Ray checked his watch but it was on the other wrist.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light: A Novel

“Nothing was new anymore: everything that was going to happen had already happened to him. All of this was leftovers. He’d already met these people”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light: A Novel

“The smallness is what killed him. The only way these people could surprise him would be by driving off a cliff into the endless twilight or pulling into an abandoned lot and caving his skull with shovels. Maybe his last words would be "Thank you". He'd give his life for something new.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“They chose Boulder for its proximity to the slopes and they lived in constant conflict with the locals, a judgemental breed of Earthshoed, Subaru driving, granola-totaling yuppies that pined for the sixties and spent their retirement fighting for bike lanes and recycling programs as if they were civil rights.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“He didn’t have much at this time but he owned the present and later tonight he would attest for his past and improve his future.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“The pair of vests froze as Billy Ray slashed the space in front of him with the jagged bottleneck, his eyes burning, collapsed stars. “Who’s tough?” he said. “Who wants to stay young forever?”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“Looking around, they all looked so happy. Everyone was hugging, even the boys. No one hugged when he was their age. He could feel the promise rising off them, the glowing hope.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“​The girl’s eyes were racooned by dark circles. She looked defeated. She was too tired to be so young.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light

“Disgust boiled in Billy Ray’s chest like a second heartbeat: of all the things a man can be, a coward is the worst.”
― Sam Tallent, Running the Light