Nanci Kincaid > Quotes

“She loved him because he was the reason why.”
― Nanci Kincaid, Verbena

“It was funny the way memory obliged the heart. His happy recollections were always afloat in his soupy subconscious where so many of his darker memories had sunk to the underbelly of his past and been as good as lost forever. But without conscious instruction, memory had edited and enlarged the finest moments of his life and stored them like masterpieces in the private gallery of his personal history.”
― Nanci Kincaid, Eat, Drink, and Be From Mississippi

“It made me understand that we don't always get to decide what we let in and what we keep out. A door is just an idea.”
― Nanci Kincaid, As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me

“Truely was a Mississippi boy still. He didn't have a thing against religion, especially in the gentle hands of somebody like his daddy--or his mother either. But he wasn't too much persuaded when salvation was fired out of a double-barrel shotgun aimed point-blank at his skull.”
― Nanci Kincaid

“Bobby’s death was like if you’d spent nearly twenty years reading a book and were only halfway through when the book got lost or taken away from you. For the rest of your life, all you could do was guess the end.”
― Nanci Kincaid, Verbena: A Novel

“Pinetta was a hotbed of snakes and storms and sandspurs and sexual longing.”
― Nanci Kincaid

“Unlike some of his buddies, Truely had never been afraid of books. Following his daddy's example, he had read the newspaper every day of his life since the sixth grade, starting with the sports page. He had a vague idea what was going on in the world. It was true that Truely could generally nail a test, took a certain pride in it, but he was also a guy who like to dance all night to throbbing music in makeshift clubs off unlit country roads. He liked to drink a cold beer on a hot day, maybe a flask of Jack Daniel's on special occasions. He wore his baseball cap backwards, his jeans ripped and torn--because they were old and practically worn-out, not because he bought them that way. His hair was a little too long, his boots a little too big, his aspirations modest. He preferred listening to talking--and wasn't all that great at either. He like barbecue joints more than restaurants. Catfish and hush puppies or hot dogs burned black over a campfire were his favorites. He preferred simple food dished out in large helpings. He liked to serve himself and go for seconds.”
― Nanci Kincaid, Eat, Drink, and Be From Mississippi

“Maybe in Sue Cox’s case they shouldn’t be called laugh lines, Bena thought. Not in Bena’s own case either. Who was it that thought women got wrinkles from laughing so much?”
― Nanci Kincaid, Verbena: A Novel

“There was an orange flickering candle on their table, which was a fine touch in the dimly lit place. It put sort of a golden glow on their faces. Bena liked that and sort of settled into letting herself feel pretty, you know, like nearly any woman can when the lights are low.”
― Nanci Kincaid, Verbena

“Lucky settled on an NPR-type station that played jazz—not New Orleans–type jazz, but the other kind, you know, New York type or something where you get the feeling that everybody playing an instrument went to college someplace fancy and studied music until they just about ruined all their natural instincts.”
― Nanci Kincaid, Verbena: A Novel

“Sometimes the missing thing is the glue that holds everything else in place.”
― Nanci Kincaid, As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me: A Novel

“I knew then, in that small moment, that all my life I would be the kind of woman that inspired weakness in men. It was like my future stretched out in front of me and I could see it, a future of men turning to me for comfort, not passion. Men trusting me more than I wanted to be trusted. Men turning into boys, maybe even babies, in my arms. I would be the kind of woman who loved men into lesser, not finer, selves.”
― Nanci Kincaid, As Hot as It Was You Ought to Thank Me