Amy Mason Doan > Quotes

“My childhood home in Coeur-de-Lune was now a vacation rental, managed by efficient strangers. I'd never gone back. But my mother kept a buzzing gossip line into her church women from town, and gave me sporadic updates on Casey's life.

She always brought Casey up when I was lulled into complacency. When we'd had a surprisingly peaceful afternoon together. When we were outside on her balcony, or sharing a piece of her peach pie like other mothers and daughters did.

Only then would she jab, a master fencer going for the unprotected sliver of my heart.”
― Amy Mason Doan, The Summer List

“We used to escape together, years ago, when we were so sure we could steal time before it stole us.”
― Amy Mason Doan, Summer Hours

“Certain politicians have vilified the media and weaponized the public’s desire for simple, entertaining stories because, without the media to check them, they can lie with impunity.”
― Amy Mason Doan, Summer Hours

“That picture had been taken so long ago, in another life, that the girl is a stranger.
Her stance is wide, confident...she gazes off to her right so you can see her determined profile, and her sunlit hair, never cut, is a wild, bright mass dancing in the wind.”
― Amy Mason Doan, The California Dreamers

“Is DREAMERS the truth?
It captures something truthful. The joy of racing from what doesn't matter toward what does, surrounded by the tiny group of people on the planet who understand you...
But capturing something truthful isn't the same as telling the truth.”
― Amy Mason Doan, The California Dreamers

“You show me your world and I’ll show you mine.”
― Amy Mason Doan, Lady Sunshine

“Each wave is the ocean pushing us back to land, commanding us to go, be mortal gain. But every time we paddle back out we're saying, 'Not yet, please. Not just yet.”
― Amy Mason Doan, The California Dreamers

“Curdilune. Cur is heart in French, he’d explained. Lune is moon. So it means Heart of the Moon.”
― Amy Mason Doan, The Summer List

“energy rightly applied and directed will accomplish anything.”
― Amy Mason Doan, Summer Hours

“But weddings are brutal that way. They put the friendship caste system into perfect focus. You can’t avoid it: there are a hundred reminders of how you rank. Maid of honor down to an insignificant soul marooned at the table at the tip of the dining room archipelago, farthest from the head table. Where the guests merit only a distracted, “Hey, so glad you could come,” as the couple takes their courtesy lap around the room.”
― Amy Mason Doan, Summer Hours

“Citizens. That's what Cap calls people who stay put, who have regular jobs. Who go to school. When he's feeling sorry for them, Cap calls them SSNs. Social Security Numbers.
When I was little, I used to think he was saying "assassins.”
― Amy Mason Doan, The California Dreamers

“Who’s Tucker?” “Not who,” I said. “Where. A little town near where we grew up.”
― Amy Mason Doan, The Summer List

“A speedboat packed with college kids swerved past.
Carelessly close, blasting music, seemingly oblivious to the near miss.
“Everyone goes a little crazy the last week of summer."
—from SUMMER HOURS, out June 4, 2019”
― Amy Mason Doan, Summer Hours

“As an adult, Jackie discovers a startling clue buried in her uncle’s lyrics—and realizes that she may be wrong about what happened that summer long ago.”
― Amy Mason Doan, Lady Sunshine

“With strangers we must try. With the ones we love, we lean back into the simple joy of being ourselves.”
― Amy Mason Doan, Summer Hours

“From the water it looked like a boat, with rows of small, high windows—so much like portholes—and a long, skinny dock—pirate's gangplank—to complete the effect. When the place started falling apart in the '70s, some grumbly neighbor called it The Shipwreck, and the name had stuck.

It was a love-it-or-hate-it house, and the Shepherd women had loved it.

So had I.”
― Amy Mason Doan, The Summer List

“I was allowed to be someone different with him. To try out another version of myself. And I needed to figure out who I was. Instead of letting everyone decide for me.” He offers the faintest of nods. “So I can’t be sorry it happened.” I touch his elbow. “But I’ll always be sorry that I hurt you. And that I lied.”
― Amy Mason Doan, Summer Hours

“I'd had kisses. Rushed, wet, tasting of beer, right out in the open. I'd messed around with a funny sophomore in my anthropology seminar and a shy journalism grad student, and while these nights were satisfying in their way, the pleasure didn't last past 2:00 am.
I missed patience, the sweet, smoky taste of scotch. And the gut thrum of the forbidden.
Instead of obscuring my memory of him, the hours I spent with boys at school slid to the edges and collected around it, like a frame.”
― Amy Mason Doan, Summer Hours

“Be kind. I repeated it in my head whenever she got on my nerves.”
― Amy Mason Doan, Summer Hours

“Love is Blue”
― Amy Mason Doan, The Summer List

“Even though I was only twenty, even though it was less than twelve months, my time with Cal will always be an unwritten part of my résumé. I will never be able to erase it. While he sailed away.”
― Amy Mason Doan, Summer Hours

“And how can you explain these lyrics? They’re about what she did with the shells!”
― Amy Mason Doan, Lady Sunshine

“I checked the big silver-and-white wall clock. It was the centerpiece in a construction-paper design that said:

TIME IS PASSING. WILL YOU?
FOCUS!

The O in focus was the clock.”
― Amy Mason Doan