Little Altars Everywhere Quotes

“Sidda can't help herself. She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves the black letters marching across the white pages...”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“See, she goes places when she reads. I know all about that. When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to. This is something that I've struggled with my whole life long.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Listen to me, Siddalee, and listen good: There is no excuse to let your looks go, no matter how poor you are. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, but honey let me tell you, ugliness will get you nowhere.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Sometimes I wonder if any of us are cut out for the lives we lead.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Zip it kiddo. Don't ever admit you know a thing about cooking or it'll be used against you later in life.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“You cannot escape from life. Life is not a book. You can't just set it down on the coffee table and walk away from it when it gets boring or you get tired.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Books are living things with blood and bones, and it breaks our heart when people dissect them.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“There is the truth of history, and there is the truth of what a person remembers. As {she} sat at the edge of {the lake}, memory blossoms floated unbounded, as though breathed, no words spoken. Like birds that fly across national borders, between countries at war at each other.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“...Don't ever worry bout bein holy, babychild. Just keep your eyes wide open except when you sleep. Then let the Lord's mighty vision see you through the night.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Sidda can't help herself, She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves those black letters marching across the white pages.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“I shake so hard that freckles jump off my face.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“hear anything about my lessons. When I try to show her Charlene’s numbers from The Pajama”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Honestly, Edythe, Mama says, like she’s going to give her the most important advice in the world, If you continue acting this way, you will be unpopular for the rest of your life. I wish I could go someplace far away”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“social structure of Troop 55. There are”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Well, I could have predicted that something like this was going to happen. You can’t go anywhere with Mama without things getting nuts. If it’s going along too smooth she will invent something just to stir things up. Sometimes we’ll be downtown”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Life is not a book. You can’t just set it down on the coffee table and walk away from it when it gets boring or you get tired.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Siddalee looked at me like: You liar, Daddy, you big liar. I don’t know why I’m thinking”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“far as I knew. Never thought one way or the other when Mama used to take her “naps” in the middle of Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner. Never said to myself, Mama’s not napping, she’s passed-out drunk. Never even questioned”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“hope they remember that when they get older. When they count up the things I did and didn’t do. I never gave the drinking a second”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“supposed to walk off my block, Sherry says, like a real whiny-baby.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“sadness usually does, as soon as I sat down and began to listen. The small press had a correspondingly”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“...when we done went and ripped all the gold "HIS" monograms off the anniversary towels and writ SHITHEAD on them with magic markers.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“I was near, even though she couldn’t see me. But then I’m always expecting too much from the girl, wanting her to know things she can’t”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“Edythe, I finally say, Why don’t you go on back to your bunk and eat your boogers for a midnight snack like you always do at home? Well, that comment really sends my friends, and I’m a big hit. But then I see Edythe’s face. It’s like something has fallen on it and crumpled it in. Somehow she looks so familiar that I can feel her bones inside my own body. And I start to feel sort of sick. She turns and walks away and”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“God will not allow us to be overwhelmed by temptation, but with it He will provide a way of escape so that we will be able to endure it.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“thinking: I don’t want my little girl to come out blind or gouged up. I’m not cheap, I’m scared. It’s the story of my life: not stingy, just a goddamn coward.”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere

“this dream where I just tell it all, and then this special-made vacuum cleaner comes and sucks all the crap out of my lungs. Stops me from drowning. Clean oxygen reaches deep in my chest like it hasn’t for so goddamn long. In the dream I tell it all, and I breathe like a baby. I forget to worry about the next breath, just trust it’s gonna come. Siddalee asks too many questions. I don’t know where the child gets those thoughts. She pins me to the wall with all the stuff she asks. Sometimes I wish she’d lose her voice. And sometimes I want to go and sit in front of her and ask her questions. I’d like to say: What do you want me to do? Tell me what to do—step by step—to get out of the mess we’re in here in this house. But I know it’s foolishness”
― Rebecca Wells, Little Altars Everywhere