Head Like a Hole Quotes

“Coincidences might be twins but they’re never triplets.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“I like to think we’re the sum total of all those who helped us or hurt us or simply shared our life for a moment.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“Maybe that’s what immortality is: remembering the tastes of your youth while feeding your children.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“pluperfect”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“Yes, he has to admit, there is a charm to the desert, a desolate beauty. And perhaps an unspoken promise: the desert doesn’t care about your dreams or your deeds, your future or your past. The desert can devour you. And maybe, if you go deep enough, if you’re strong enough and stay long enough, then maybe you can emerge a new person. It’s a nice enough thought.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“She whispers, “You knock on my door… with the names of my dead friends dripping from your lips. You come into my home and you stir up these memories. You… insinuate.” He gives her his most agreeable nod with each point. “And for what? To get some clips for a lousy podcast?” Fear tickles his skin, but he forces himself to keep that calm mask from slipping. “What, you thought I wouldn’t figure it out? I looked you up while you were in the bathroom. Anwar Fariz of Suburban Murders. Or was it The Killer Next Door that won that trashy podcast award?” He holds up two fingers and gives her a smug smile. “Two-time winner.” “You dig up people’s pain and sadness. You process it like a sausage and profit. You don’t create; you regurgitate. You’re a vulture, a merchant of misery.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“Help me!” Don’t look back, Megan told herself. Don’t do it. She looked back. Blackening fingers scratched at the rug, sliding back, backward toward the edge and the inferno below. With all her strength, Oksana clawed at the cindering floorboards and stretched out a desperate hand. “Help me! Please, Meg! Don’t leave me again!” And there Megan stood between the blistering heat on her cheeks and the cool fog on her back, the past still reaching out and screaming to be heard.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“Oksana’s voice chased them, booming down the smoky halls and scratching at their ankles. Every word shook something loose. A floorboard buckled and rose. A painting slid down the wall. Something crunched underfoot and his boot lost traction. Hundreds of snails carpeted the floor. “Do you know what it’s like to have nothing? To be reduced to the barest scrap of existence? To eat desperation? Of course not. You and your friends, you whine about hardships, but you’ve never tasted misery. You’re a tourist to suffering.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“Thirty feet. Twenty feet. Ten. They threw the sofa aside, reaching for the glass door and the promise of cool fog and precious air. Megan caught the red-yellow reflections of fire stretching up the halls and curling the wallpaper. She took the handle and slid the door open. And then the whole house rearranged.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“This was it, a rain of bullets if they were lucky, and then searing heat. Megan closed her eyes and accepted it. Only Adam remained still, his head bowed as a curious giggle left his lips. Across the room, Oksana stared at him, unblinking. “You… still don’t… get it,” he laughed. Petro took Adam by his hair and hoisted his face. “Something final to add?” “None of you… get it.” Adam’s eyes fluttered at the edge of unconsciousness. Through tears, Megan noticed Adam’s severed finger. Wormlike, it inched its way across the floor. “It wasn’t Megan who brought Oksana back,” he said. “I’ve been inside of her. Which means she’s been inside of me for years.” He sprang to his feet and leapt onto Petro. Despite the handcuffs, the two spilled over backward, tangled and twisting. Megan wasn’t sure what happened first. The gunshots, perhaps. Or the guttural cry from Adam’s throat. Or maybe the ruby fissures that opened down his cheeks as his jaw dislocated and his teeth sank into Petro’s tender face. So many teeth.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“While he disappeared into the kitchen, Petro’s gaze rose as he took in the moonlit ceiling that stretched up to the second and third floors. Crossed oars and old life buoys decorated the walls. Nets and spears and shelves with the occasional ship in a bottle. High above, an old helm hung from tasteful chains, repurposed into a chandelier.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“The old summer house stretched from the bluff, a fog-wrapped thing of shadowed brick and creaking wood. Casement windows winked in the headlights. A brown rat scurried down the porch and into the dry brush. Gulls scattered as Detective Nolan parked in the crescent driveway.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“Desi felt her old friend’s breath beside her ear, whispering not to worry. That it would be over soon. That she’d always envied her complexion. That she didn’t need much to make things even, just some of her skin. Their two hearts drummed together now, faster and faster. At first Desi thought the lights were dimming. But it was Oksana’s skin that was glowing, radiating, brighter and brighter, until the very air leaving Desi’s lips was a fast-blackening smoke and her screams became embers.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“His cheeks stretched as he grinned that same grin she once found irresistible. “I’ll cut you a check right now. Name the price.” “I’m not sure the trust fund could take the hit.” She regretted her words as they left her lips. In her head, she had rehearsed endless barbs that would cut him to the bone. She carried them like arrows. Now she saw them for what they were, petty comments forged in the fires of disappointment and sharpened by time.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“Do you love me, Louis? Do you want me to be happy?” “More than anything.” “Then do me one final kindness.” She leaned in, his body tensing as her lips touched his ear. Her words poured in, honeyed whispers raising the hairs on the back of his neck and hardening him in that place of great shame. Then she kissed him, her lips soft against his. She was in him, always, ever since that first morning on the boat in the bay, the best day of his life. He felt every cell beginning to sing. “Thank you, Louis.” He was nodding and crying now; he knew what needed to be done and was proud of his part. He just needed the strength.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“Nice by proximity, but I need a larger sample size. God, Sal… Could you imagine hooking up? He’d probably keep a log and critique it.” “He’d probably wear his scarf.” “That ratty thing swaying around like an old elephant trunk while he’s all naked and thrusting? There’s an image.” She raised her nose and took on Sal’s inflection. “Mmm, yes, missionary, a most rudimentary position. I much prefer the Gutenberg pile driver.” “The Gutenberg pile driver?” Cindy shrugged and held her hand out the window, making little wave motions in the cool air. June felt the laughter building between them. Then she was dabbing her eyes, trying to steer while wiping that mental image from her mind. Perhaps, in another life, that was how her night with Sal was proceeding. No wonder some of the sisters preferred much older guys.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“She hated to admit it, but the man bore a hole straight into her heart. She’d been holding back. “Your work is lovely and adequate, yes, your technique acceptable. Your paintings would look wonderful upon the walls of a hotel or a hospital or… wherever. But greatness only comes from the balance of the eye and the heart. Unless you can be honest with yourself, unless you can be brave and take risks, then I’m afraid there’s little any of us can do for your journey.” Megan told herself not to get misty-eyed. She blinked and forced a smile to her face. This man, he wasn’t standing in her way; she understood that now. None of them were. She couldn’t move forward because she was still holding back.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“She found Dean Henry easily enough. He was the silver-haired man in the loud patterned jacket and a Burberry scarf that hung a little too long. He wore John Lennon glasses and the righteous smile formed over decades of lectures. A grinning cadre surrounded him. She drifted close enough to catch the end of a conversation about movie posters and the recent death of Saul Bass.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“There it was again, that fixation on his neighbor. As far back as Graham could remember, Louis and Bill had been at each other. Two locals who grew up together, about the same age. Perhaps some high school slight they’d never resolved. Small towns were like that; rivalries festered.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“He pitied Bill, of course, and he might have offered some encouragement, some advice, or a ride to his weekly AA meeting, but it seemed Bill was still in denial of his demons. Graham knew his own demons too well. They lived in the pediatric cancer ward.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“And to answer your question,” Megan says, “of course I miss them. I like to think we’re the sum total of all those who helped us or hurt us or simply shared our life for a moment. I revisit the past often these days. But I couldn’t back”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“Four canvases, each a progression from dark abstraction to bold, bright constructions. Her most recently finished painting, an aggressive explosion of images pulled from her dreams. A cindering woman, skin cracked and leaking magma, pressed an open palm against the center of the canvas. Mirroring her on the other side stood a woman of cool blues, her skin liquid, organs formed from seaweed and kelp, a conch shell for a heart.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“She was starting to understand the truth of it all: most friends didn’t grow older and closer. They simply grew apart.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“By the eleventh page, he understood. This was him, here, in the center of the shadows. Like stepping out of a dark closet and into the light. Each page revealed more of his features in crosshatches and dots. On fifteen, he could see shoulders. On eighteen, he realized his printed hands were holding a gray rectangle mid-chest. That was a piece of paper he was clutching. He was looking at himself holding this very page. And his face… One of his eyes was empty, just a dripping black hole. But it wasn’t this realization that dried his tongue and tightened his bowels. It was the two shapes that gripped his printed shoulders. Twin things of jagged claws and tentacles, a writhing mass of wormy ribbons and fingers.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“But every now and then, a diamond was discovered. Megan still dreamed of transforming herself into that diamond. “We’re not saying it’s mandatory,” the chairwoman said, yet her smile said it was. “However, it would help your chances. Dean Henry is more… approachable at such events.” “Just look for the man with a fedora and a martini,” her advisor added. “But wait until he’s on his second or third.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“Was this how madness happened? First slowly and then all at once?”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“It’s kind of cold out.” “Oh it’s freezing, for sure. But that gives you an excuse to borrow some cute guy’s jacket.” It was Cindy’s turn to nod and smile, and she did so, feeling both self-conscious and excited. She had so much to learn from her big sister. She never noticed that June’s knees were shaking.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“Perhaps Symon and Sofiy will think of her cooking someday, long after the baseball practices are over and the parent-teacher conferences have finished. Maybe that’s what immortality is: remembering the tastes of your youth while feeding your children.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“The GPS chimes his arrival at 1414 Marigold Drive. He circles around and parks the rental car across the street. He collects his notebook and tablet from the passenger side. He pops out two Xanax and swallows them dry.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole

“That’s the power of memory, he supposes. Every one is unique, carved into neurons and strengthened through emotions and senses. It’s why so many adults never move past the music of their youth.”
― Andrew Van Wey, Head Like a Hole