Julia Elliott > Quotes

“I closed my eyes and saw the future, a red, fleshy blob pupating in dark fluid like something in a mad scientist's incubator. I saw strange organs throbbing beneath its translucent shell. Saw the future bust from its chrysalis in scattering blazes of diamond light, winged and glistening, already flitting out the window, darting off toward the horizon before I could get a good look at it.”
― Julia Elliott, The New and Improved Romie Futch

“We didn't speak, and a beautiful, sweet evil grew between us.”
― Julia Elliott, the Wilds

“Yet we all dragged our cyborgian carcasses across the trashed planet every day. We all chased various forms of intoxication, hoping to soothe our savage souls. I could see myself some twenty years hence, a gray-haired troll slumped on a barstool, my nose a bulbous mess of clotted capillaries.”
― Julia Elliott, The New and Improved Romie Futch

“Let's draw straws to see who gets eaten.”
― Julia Elliott, The New and Improved Romie Futch

“And so I wrote. With slavering gusts of animal rage, I wrote- howling like a wolf, bellowing like a patchwork creature composed of stinking corpse parts, my monster face distorted with fury, my skin straining against the crude black stitches that affixed it to the pulsing musculature beneath. I was alive! Every nerve within me sparked with rage”
― Julia Elliott

“Suddenly I’d found myself past thirty, shacked up with a fussy bald man nine years my senior who enjoyed monitoring every facet of our household—finances, thermostat, hot-water heater, water and electricity usage, lawn maintenance, and pest control.”
― Julia Elliott, The Wilds

“[...] I kept thinking we were trapped in hell.
Infernal, lung-curdling smoke? Check.
Eardrum-bursting, satanic thunder? Check.
Multitudes of shrieking imps? Check.
[...] I had the gut feeling I was trapped there eternally, back behind First Baptist's aluminum-sided temple.”
― Julia Elliott, The New and Improved Romie Futch

“Always expect the worst…and then you might be pleasantly surprised”
― Julia Elliott

“the way he used to when our love was a living creature, breathing in the room with us.”
― Julia Elliott, The Wilds

“As I ached for this lost part of myself, my missing finger became a synecdoche for all lost things in my life—women and mothers, youth and full-scalp coverage, soberness, and the bliss of solid sleep. Most of all, I ached for the future as a shimmering, distant thing.”
― Julia Elliott, The New and Improved Romie Futch

“So your ex was a biter?” I say, wondering if his ex-wife is attractive, athletic, fleet of foot and long of limb, wondering why dumpy dudes like Jeff feel entitled to such women.”
― Julia Elliott, The Wilds

“off, and the American Empire declines slowly, we could spend the rest of our thirties parodying our twentysomething personas and retire at age forty after pimping our nubile selves.”
― Julia Elliott, The Wilds

“How many times had we driven through empty Sunday streets of Hampton while listening to 'Piano Man,' our stomachs leaden with buffet food, queasy from Mom's cigarette smoke? We passed an abandoned tanning salon, its windows boarded up, crude palm trees painted on its walls. A bloated sun smiled demonically from its dead neon sign.

'Everything is beautiful,' Mom said.”
― Julia Elliott, The New and Improved Romie Futch

“I e-mailed all my clients a twenty-percent-off coupon.
Diverted all thoughts of Helen.
Thwarted all invitations to binge drink with Lee and Chip.
Allowed myself only brief, utilitarian forays into the labyrinth of Internet porn.
Delighted in the shrinkage of my potbelly.
Took pleasure in the flexing of new muscle tone.
Snacked on baby carrots.
Learned to appreciate the slow crawl of the sun over my patio as I gingerly sipped a Miller Light”
― Julia Elliott, The New and Improved Romie Futch