Fight Night Quotes

“He looked sad and happy at the same time. That's a popular adult look. Because adults are busy and have to do everything at once, even feel things.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“[W]hat makes a tragedy bearable and unbearable is the same thing—which is that life goes on.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“She says Mom does the emotional work for the whole family, feeling everything ten times harder than is necessary so the rest of us can act normal.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“I have videos of Grandma on my cellphone. In one I asked her what will happen to her body after she dies. She says ahhhhh, my body! My body will become energy that will light your path.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“You’ll know for yourself what to fight. Grandma told me fighting can be making peace. She said sometimes we move forward by looking back and sometimes the onward can be knowing when to stop.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“If you lose your mind can you find your mind again? Of course you can. That's life!”
― Miriam Toews , Fight Night

“They stole it from us. It was. . .our tragedy! Which is our humanity. We need those things. We need tragedy, which is the need to love and the need. . .not just the need, the imperative, the human imperative. . .to experience joy. To find joy and to create joy. All through the night. The fight night.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“You're a small thing and you must learn to fight.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“Lonely fights are the worst, she said. She’d rather lose a lonely fight. She’d rather join a losing team than win a lonely fight.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“To be alive means full body contact with the absurd. Still, we can be happy. Even poor old Sisyphus could figure that much out. And that’s saying something. You might say that God is an absurd concept but faith in God’s goodness. . .I find joy in that. I find it inspiring.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“She said what makes a tragedy bearable and unbearable is the same thing- which is that life goes on.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“On the days she gets the death calls she grabs at me when I walk past her and I know she wants affection, but I hate always having to be the embodiment of life.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“Grandma asked me if I wanted to continue our Editorial Meeting but I didn’t answer. Then she asked me if I knew what bioluminescence was. I smashed breadcrumbs with my thumb and kept my piehole shut. It’s one’s ability to create light from within, said Grandma. Like a firefly. I think you have that, Swivchen. You have a fire inside you and your job is to not let it go out. I’m too young to have a job, I said.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“Even when Grandma is fast asleep and snoring, if I put one finger gently on her shoulder she’ll burst to life and stretch her arms out to me and smile and say, Sweetheartchen! I ask her every time, Did you detect my presence? But she never hears me because she takes her hearing aids out to sleep and she just laughs and holds on to my wrists like they’re reins on a horse. She can’t believe she keeps waking up alive and is really amazed and grateful about it which is what all the pamphlets at therapy say we’re supposed to be feeling about every new day.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“She sprays cops when they have their windows down and are cruising slowly past our house because she hates them after what they did when Grandpa died, and just period. When they get out of the car and walk up to her she says things like, Here comes Rocket Man! Send in the clowns! The cops smile because they think she’s just a crazy old lady. But she really means business. She hates them. She doesn’t want to hate anybody but she can’t help it and she isn’t even going to pray about it because she thinks God secretly hates them too.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“I’d made “Fever” Mom’s ring tone because the song was about getting the flu from being too close to someone. I thought it was a good choice because she holds me tight and kisses me all the time and she’s always blowing her nose on me and it makes me sick and gives me fever—but now I wasn’t sure it was the right ring tone after all. I didn’t want to have a sexy ring tone for Mom on my cellphone!”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“there. Breathing is the main thing in hospitals. That’s all they want you to do whether you’re young or old and even if it’s with a hose.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“This next part is for Grandma who likes speed and laughing. She likes stories to be fast and troublesome and funny, and life too. She doesn’t like hauling epic things around. Which is why she saws up her books. I forgot to tell you that Grandma is part Christian and part secular existentialist.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“Life is a failed mission! Don’t you get it you old hippie grandpa/nephew man? We’re all gonna go crazy and die so just have some fun and keep doing it with Jude all over the house!”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“But Grandpa killed himself later, and then Momo killed herself after that. Grandma just breathed. That was all she could do. For two years she just breathed.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“Joy, said Grandma, is resistance.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“A happiness that forgot nothing, not even murder.” That’s my friend Albert. What are you talking about, Grandma? I whispered. Rieux sees it in Tarrou’s face, said Grandma. Now that is the meaning of life. Right there.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“opportunities to say lord because it makes her feel like she’s praying.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“He looked sad and happy at the same time. That’s a popular adult look because adults are busy and have to do everything at once, even feel things.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“Fighting means different things for different people. You’ll know for yourself what to fight. Grandma told me fighting can be making peace. She said sometimes we move forward by looking back and sometimes the onward can be knowing when to stop. Well, anyway, you know Grandma! We all have fires inside us, even you. Grandma said you pour so much alcohol on the fire inside you that it’s guaranteed never to go out.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“They took our life force. And so we fight to reclaim it … we fight and we fight and we fight … we fight to love … we fight to love ourselves … we fight for access to our feelings … for access to our fires … we fight for access to God … they stole God from us! We fight for our lives … some of us lose the fight … oh, it can bring a person to her knees.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“they hung out their shingles as soul-savers even as they were destroying them … they replaced our love, our joy, our emotions, our tragedies … rage! Sorrow! Violence! Lust! Desire! Sorry … am I embarrassing you, Swiv? Well, they burnt it all down! But listen … Our love … our resilience! Our madness … we go crazy, of course! We lose ourselves. We’re human. They took all those things and replaced them with evil and with guilt. Oh. My. God. Guilt!”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“They took it from us. They stole it from us. It was … our tragedy! Which is our humanity. We need those things. We need tragedy, which is the need to love and the need … not just the need, the imperative, the human imperative … to experience joy. To find joy and to create joy. All through the night. The fight night.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“fringe. To be alive means full body contact with the absurd. Still, we can be happy.”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night

“fighting can be making peace … fighting can be going small”
― Miriam Toews, Fight Night