Heather Babcock > Quotes

“Dandelions are just friendly little weeds who only want to be loved like flowers.”
― Heather Babcock

“Time doesn’t really ‘march on’. It tends to tip-toe. There’s no parade. No stomping of boots to alert you to its passing. One day, you turn around and it is gone.”
― Heather Babcock

“Nothing beats a little red lipstick for banishing the blues.”
― Heather Babcock, Filthy Sugar

“Don't plant your high hopes in a mud puddle.”
― Heather Babcock

“My mother took one of the sunflowers from me and placed it over Pumpkin’s grave. She folded her hands over her stomach and leaned forward, staring at the headstone as though she expected it to suddenly topple backwards and for Pumpkin, all strawberry-blond hair and big eyes, to emerge with arms outstretched. A low moan escaped from my mother’s lips, the kind of sound that a wild animal makes when it’s dying and alone. I wanted to comfort her, but in my own selfish, possessive grief I was immobilized. I wanted her to leave so that I could be alone with my sister.

The last time I had been alone with Pumpkin was just before the burial. She had been laid out in a frilly butter-yellow granny dress that she had worn once to our cousin’s wedding the year before. Her peach-painted mouth was pursed in a pensive expression, the kind of look she would have quickly replaced with a smile had she caught someone looking. As I leaned over the casket and pressed my lips to her cheek, I was less shocked by the coldness of her skin than I was by the realization that I had never kissed my sister before. I had hugged her many times, I had wrestled with her in front of the TV set, I had slept beside her and had felt her heart beating against my back, but I had never before kissed her face.”
― Heather Babcock, Of Being Underground and Moving Backwards

“Betty realized that when it came to relationships with other human beings, she would always feel alone. And yet there was this place – this small special place inside of her – a place where quiet beauty was embraced, a place where memories became fantasies and where fantasies became memories. Like a pebble, Betty could lose herself within this place, this opulent ocean, and yet even if the water were to one day reject her too, even if it were to cast her back up onto its shores, she knew that she would catch the light of the sun again.”
― Heather Babcock, Of Being Underground and Moving Backwards

“Only those who have walked through darkness know the precious fragility of the light.”
― Heather Babcock

“We are so invested in the fairy tale that disrespect feels like nothing more than a plot twist.”
― Heather Babcock

“Kissing Lili Belle is devouring an ice cream cone in July; it is a hotdog at the ballpark; it is Jean Harlow slipping into something more comfortable and it is better than all of those things. Kissing Lili Belle is better than the movies.”
― Heather Babcock, Filthy Sugar

“You don’t choose these people and in the not choosing you learn tolerance. You learn to forgive.”
― Heather Babcock, Of Being Underground and Moving Backwards

“She planted her high hopes in a mud puddle.”
― Heather Babcock

“Death is always close but life is stubborn.”
― Heather Babcock, Filthy Sugar

“When the lights are dim and the cigarettes are lit, the dames look like ladies and the mugs look like gentlemen and nobody sees the blood in your shoes at The Bow Tie.”
― Heather Babcock, Filthy Sugar

“I never wear knickers on a Sunday.”
― Heather Babcock, Filthy Sugar

“Sex was the rewind button when you were alone and the fast-forward button when your parents got home.”
― Heather Babcock