Groundskeeping Quotes

“I’ve always had the same predicament. When I’m home, in Kentucky, all I want is to leave. When I’m away, I’m homesick for a place that never was.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“We both laughed. I felt the competing desires, as I often did when meeting someone new, to know everything at once and to save it all for later. It was like the feeling one has reading a good book, the sensation of being propelled toward the end and at the same time wishing to linger.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“He thought about it, and after a moment he said, The things you think are dull become the things you long for.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“Whatever you think about a person, they’re always more complicated than that. It’s a good rule of thumb to follow, in fiction or in life.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“No one was ever exactly who you wanted them to be. They became themselves the more time you spent with them, which is to say, they became what you never could have predicted.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“He was an alcoholic, too. So was my aunt, my grandmother. My father was a Bible thumper, but if he hadn't been so drunk on Jesus, he'd been the same. Something about our genes. We all get carried away.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“I told her I would. My voice seemed to come from some place inside that was not subject to the laws of nature or economics, that had no patience for logistics. Whatever you want, I said.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“Preemptive nostalgia for a past that wasn’t even past yet.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“We went on drives sometimes, just for the sense of going somewhere. It helped to stave off winter restlessness - seeing the countryside slip past and looking back on what you'd left behind. You tricked yourself into thinking you were leaving.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“Oh, I don't drink. There's enough going on in my head without throwing gasoline on the fire.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“I kept forgetting that we didn't know each other that well, that my sense of familiarity with her had no basis in reality. What I knew for sure was that I'd never wanted to know. anyone as much as I wanted to know her.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“I felt the competing desires, as I often did when meeting someone new, to know everything at once and to save it all for later. It was like the feeling one has reading a good book, the sensation of being propelled toward the end and at the same time wishing to linger.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“With nothing left to talk about, he told me he’d better go. He had to feed Bonnie a bottle of Ensure. Have you considered working for Home Depot? he said, as an afterthought. Your cousin Bart works there. They have good benefits”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“It was like the feeling one has reading a good book, the sensation of being propelled toward the end and at the same time wishing to linger.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“They sell these T-shirts that say paducah, kentucky: halfway between possum trot and monkey’s eyebrow. Then there’s a cartoon picture of a monkey and possum, hanging by their tails from separate trees, reaching out to each other, Sistine Chapel–style.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“Complication makes life interesting.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“You know how doctors are, he said. Could be weeks, could be months. They say it’s not an exact science. I’m like, “What are we paying you for then? Isn’t medicine an exact science?”
Maybe they mean dying isn’t an exact science.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping

“Love is simple, she said. That’s my advice to both of you, not that you’re asking for it….People try to make it complicated , but it’s very simple, she said. You’ll realize that when you’re dying.”
― Lee Cole, Groundskeeping