Brutes Quotes

“To be loved was just to be watched, or in my case, to imagine you are loved is to imagine you are watched all the time.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“We would not be born out of sweetness, we were born out of rage.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“I would love to be cold, but it is difficult for a woman. People seem to see warmth in me, even when I offer none. Maybe if I was thinner it would be easier. But it seems to me that sometimes a woman with flesh is a woman who must always be grateful.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“Brutes! How can you girls be such brutes?” They cried. We cried, too, because we felt they were saying we were wrong. We felt foul and fatherly and frightened of ourselves. We tried to make ourselves small. We were coiled up but we were not broken. And we knew our mothers’ idea of goodness was not measured by morals but by how much noise we made. And we quickly grew tired of trying to be good in their way.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“There is a specifically Floridian smell, the stink of America. Microwaves plastic, air freshener, hot oil mixed with mildew, and something else. Something ancient, rotting, and sweaty. Possibly life.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“I used to think people only lied to make their lives mean something. Now I think people lie to make their lives meaningless, because it makes them so much easier to live.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“I am always chasing my children. I remember feeling chased as a child, but I never remember my mother chasing me. Perhaps she did not. Perhaps this is why I am the person I turned out to be.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“and now I think that to humiliate a woman is the only way some men know how to love one.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“They notice, as women notice everything, but women are as good at ignoring things as they are at understanding them.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“Every happiness held its own ruin inside it, like a glass we were about to smash.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“We would not be born out of sweetness, we were born out of rage, we felt it in our bones.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“Imagine for a second there is inside you something like a soul. This soul is like a bowl of still water. It sits, a clean and precious thing, balanced in your chest. The water is cool. Holy. It is entirely itself. It is like water before water was a word. Now, imagine a syringe. The vial is brown and, as you look at it, you realize it is full of human shit, the tiniest, foulest amount. And imagine this needle being pressed, slowly, into the skin of your sternum, injected, as you watch helplessly, into this bowl of balanced water. How quickly it spreads and stinks and fouls this cleanest thing at your center. And in seconds the bowl is ruined. And you look at the bowl and feel terrible you were unable to protect it, this precious and fragile and perfect thing. And you recognize the life's work it will take to wash and repair the bowl, and it is not fair, because it is not you who dirtied it. So you tip the bowl over and it breaks. You pretend it does not exist.
But then there are times when a feeling crawls across you. The feeling is all the sadder and truer because you cannot name it. You can live a happy enough life with a broken bowl inside you. But you will always be wanting, a feeling as keen and common to you now as thirst.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“We think of our mothers when we love them the most, which is always just after we hate them the most.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“Then over late-night dinners, this boy and I destroyed each other with words so cruel and careful they made a kind of poetry. We sanded each other down until we practically shone. But eventually we were so broken that all it took was one touch of tenderness for him to betray me. it could have happened to me, too, but broken men are much more appealing than broken women. Broken men inspire longing. Broken women are just looking to get kicked further down the drain.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“Even when we were happy, even when we reassured each other we were really living, there was a feeling lying in us that we were not. We squashed our faces against the glass of our own lives. Is this it? we asked. Are we having fun like they have fun? Are we in love like they are in love?”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“If I remind my mother of something she has said to me in the past, her answer is always the same: I never said that. I used to be amazed at her self-deception, but now I see I am exactly the same.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“stories that make us nauseous, though somehow we also know them, we have just been told them by our mothers using different words. We realise the woods are not woods, and the wolves are not wolves. In these stories, the ones that once sent us to sleep, the mothers are always banished or cursed or dead.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“I would love to be cold but it is difficult for a woman. People seem to see warmth in me even when I offer none.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“We pay particular attention to the girls. They look so familiar, and yet they have gone to a place our mothers will never describe to us. We do our own research, and we hear stories full of dirt, stories that make us nauseous, though somehow we also know them, we have just been told them by our mothers using different words. We realize the woods are not woods, and the wolves are not wolves. In these stories, the ones that once sent us to sleep, the mothers are always banished or cursed or dead.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“There was so much decoration, distraction, but we always ended up somewhere, the three of us, clustered around the kitchen island or huddled on the couch. Music played loudly and there were so many people, so many voices saying the appropriate lines, that the three of us did not have to talk.

Sometimes I think my sister, my mother and I are like one body. My distance from them causes me physical pain, but it is terrible to try to cross it with words. Only when we stand together, close and silent, do I feel whole, and also terrified, because eventually one of us is going to have to speak or move and ruin everything.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“We feel one small heart break, but we look at one another and in our look is a reminder that we have already lived a hundred heartbreaks. We are foolish and resilient.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“We somehow know this is the last day we will ever paint our nails like her, ever scour the shelves at the pharmacy for her messages. We are no longer sure she is in control of her own mystery.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“There is a specifically Floridian smell, the stink of America. Microwaved plastic, air freshener, hot oil mixed with mildew, and something else. Something ancient, rotting, and sweaty. Possibly life.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“We feel chased. It doesn't matter if it's only by our own shadows.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“I am all flesh to them. They would be terrified to think of my bones.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“It was our first time being quiet doing anything and we were ashamed, but we could not help it. We wanted to be like them, to become ever louder and brighter, but we could feel their futures slipping through our fingers, because we were not stupid. We could tell who was going to peak early and we were not. Even when we were happy, even when we reassured each other we were really living, there was a feeling lying in us that we were not. We squashed our faces against the glass of our own lives. Is this it? we asked. Are we having fun like they have fun? Are we in love like they are in love? We filled up our days following them, watching them, waiting to be invited in. We ran from the truth that the answer was in the question. We were not, and never would be, satisfied.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“women notice everything, but women are as good at ignoring things as they are at understanding them.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“now I think that to humiliate a woman is the only way some men know how to love one.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“We feel maniacal with hope.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes

“how ridiculous that is, that I’ve spent five years of my life valuing everything I see in terms of how much enjoyment he will get out of it, constantly sending him dumb reminders to love me.”
― Dizz Tate, Brutes