Shannon Pufahl > Quotes

“She is stopped sometimes, at work or waking in the mornings, by a poignant feeling. The feeling is like happiness but it comes so slowly and is so austere she might easily mistake it for grief.”
― Shannon Pufahl, On Swift Horses

“She thinks suddenly that what has spooked her is not good luck but the vivid fact of luck itself. Even with all her preparation and the long knowledge of the horsemen, her account of the weather and the odds, only preposterous chance could have led to this result. And if there was such good luck in the world, and if it could outpace her own agency and her own knowledge, then bad luck must be the same, and no luck, too. She has been seen and accommodated by luck, and she wants out of its sight line.”
― Shannon Pufahl, On Swift Horses

“Somehow his injury never made him seem hurt. It lent him instead an air of placatory misfortune, as if he had taken someone else’s trauma out of pity.”
― Shannon Pufahl, On Swift Horses

“Somehow his injury never made him seem hurt. It lent him instead an air of placatory misfortune, as if he had taken someone else’s trauma out of pity. Henry looked at Julius so intently that he thought he might die waiting for Henry to touch him.”
― Shannon Pufahl, On Swift Horses

“Henry says, “It almost looks like it’s been here forever.”
“And will be forevermore,” Julius says.

They look at each other and like lovers everywhere take such claims about the world to be their own fortune.”
― Shannon Pufahl, On Swift Horses

“He feels wonderfully alone. That is what love feels like to him. As if finally he’s touching the very outside of himself, pressed against the limits of his body, singular, replete.”
― Shannon Pufahl, On Swift Horses