Friday, October 15, 2010

Department Of Best Lines And Descriptions

From Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn:

They always call depression the blues, but I would have been happy to wake up to a periwinkle outlook. Depression to me is urine yellow. Washed out, exhausted miles of weak piss. (64)

The children, too, hovered about, little blond ghosts trapped in a limbo between indolence and stupidity. (89)

I alsways feel sad for the girl that I was, because it never occurred to me that my mother might comfort me. She has never told me she loved me, and I never assumed she did. She tended to me. She administrated me. Oh, yes, and one time she bought me lotion with vitamin E. (96)

Like all rural towns, Wind Gap has an obsession with machinery. Most homes own a car and a half for every occupant (the half being an antique collectible, or an old piece of crap on blocks, depending on the income bracket), plus boats, Jet Skis, scooters, tractors, and among the elite of Wind Gap, golf carts, which younger kids without licenses use to whip around town. Technically illegal, but no one ever stops them. (128)

"Ah, well, being conflicted means you can live a shallow life without copping to being a shallow person." (132)

Sometimes I think illness sits inside every woman, waiting for the right moment to bloom. I have known so many sick women in my life. Women with chronic pain, with ever-gestating diseases. Women with conditions. Men, sure, they have bone snaps, have backaches, they have a surgery or two, yank out a tonsil, insert a shiny hip. Women get consumed. Not surprising, considering the shear amount of traffic a woman's body experiences. Tampons and speculums. Cocks, fingers, vibrators, and more, between the legs from behind, in the mouth. Men love to put things inside women don't they? Cucumbers and bananas and bottles, a string of pearls, a Magic Marker, a fist. Once a guy wanted to wedge a Walkie-Talkie inside me. I declined. (204)

My own mother had been a mother's aide, a coveted, elite position in the school that only women who didn't work could do: swoop into classrooms twice a week and help organize arts, crafts, music, and for girls on Thursdays, sewing. At least in my day it had been sewing. By now it was probably something more gender neutral and modern. Computer usage or beginners' microwaving. (215)

2 comments:

Melzer said...

I like this. You should do it more often. I should do it!

Kerry said...

Thanks! It's hard to find great quotations like these, but Flynn is amazing.