Latest Posts by alphareader - Page 8

"Your mind will never lose anything forever that's worth keeping."

'A Certain Slant of Light' by Laura Whitcomb

I say "There seems to be an alcoholic language and I don't speak it." I have never had an ear for languages, which is yet another reason why I should leave right now. People chuckle knowingly. David smiles. I turn red and mentally scold myself for actually involving myself with these people. Better to sit quietly, avert the eyes. Do not ask the Iranian hijackers for an extra pillow.

'Dry' by Augusten Burroughs 

Despair is a cavern beneath our feet and we teeter on its very brink

'The Year of Wonders' by Geraldine Brooks 

"...you feel a little bit lost right now about what to do with your life, a bit rudderless and oarless and aimless but that's okay that's alright because we're all meant to be like that at twenty-four."

'One Day' by David Nicholls 

"Every time he looked at me I felt like I'd touched my tongue to the tip of a battery. In art class I'd watch him lean back and listen and I was nothing but zing and tingle. After a while, the tingle turned to electricity, and when he asked me out my whole body amped to a level where technically I should have been dead. I had nothing in common with a sheddy like him, but a girl doesn't think straight when she's that close to electrocution."

'Graffiti Moon' by Cath Crowley 

Boy you really missed the boat. I'll make it simple, so's even fuckin you can understand. Papa God growed us up till we could wear long pants; then he licensed his name to dollar bills, left some car keys on the table, and got the fuck outta town". Water rushes to his eye-holes. "Don’t be lookin up at no sky for help. Look down here, at us twisted dreamers". He takes hold of my shoulders, spins me around, and punches me towards the mirror on the wall. "You're the God. Take responsibility. Exercise your power

'Vernon God Little' by DBC Pierre

"I’m scared I’m going to spend the rest of my life in a state of yearning, regardless of where I am."

'The Piper's Son' by Melina Marchetta 

I realized these were all the snapshots which our children would look at someday with wonder, thinking their parents had lived smooth, well-ordered, established-within-the-photo lives and got up in the morning to walk proudly on the sidewalks of life, never dreaming the raggedy madness and riot of our actual lives, our actual night, the hell of it, the senseless nightmare road. All of it inside endless and beginningless emptiness. Pitiful forms of ignorance.

'On the Road' by Jack Kerouac 

Stars should not be seen alone. That's why there are so many. Two people should stand together and look at them. One person alone will surely miss the good ones.

'Dry' by Augusten Burroughs 

Listen. To live is to be marked. To live is to change, to acquire the words of a story, and that is the only celebration we mortals really know. In perfect stillness, frankly, I've only ever found sorrow.

'The Poisonwood Bible' by Barbara Kingsolver 

It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

'East of Eden' by John Steinbeck

The last time of anything has the poignancy of death itself. This that I see now, she thought, to see no more this way. Oh, the last time how clearly you see everything; as though a magnifying light had been turned on it. And you grieve because you hadn't held it tighter when you had it every day. What had Granma Mary Rommely said? 'To look at everything always as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time: Thus is your time on earth filled with glory.'

'A Tree Grows in Brooklyn' Betty Smith 

Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them.

'Autobiography of a face' by Lucy Grealy

Aye, well," he said, "I dinna recall Adam's asking God to take back Eve - and look what she did to him." He leaned forward and kissed my forehead as I laughed, then drew the blanket up over my bare shoulders. "Go to sleep, my wee rib. I shall be needin' a helpmeet in the morning.

'Dragonfly in Amber' by Diana Gabaldon 

At least if you were ignorant, you could do what you wanted, you had no idea what had been achieved in the past. You were free, instead of chewed at by bleeding impotence, dissolved away like a pearl in acid.

'Paint it Black' by Janet Fitch