Evan Maxwell > Quotes

“She let the landscape seep through her tightly held emotions.”
― Evan Maxwell, All the Winters That Have Been

“Helen read his expression as she would read the evening sky at weather change. For a terrible instant, she was a girl again, floating in a black pool, watching her future walk toward her with a wolflike grace that made breathing impossible.”
― Evan Maxwell, All the Winters That Have Been

“Slowly, just as the sun appeared behind the craggy black peaks, Dane felt Dewey's hand loosen. The old man began to slide away, his eyes fixed on the clean, yellow light.
Then Dewey seemed to flinch and draw back. His fingers wrapped around Dane's hand, and he held on, struggling to return.
Dane remembered what Helen had said.
"It's okay, Dewey, I'll miss you. But everything is taken care of here."
Dane swallowed hard and drew a deep breath.
"You're free to go," Dane said in a clear, gentle voice. "I love you."
Slowly, gently, the fingers that had built a house and written biology lessons on a blackboard and fished and loved and wiped away Dane's tears… slowly the gnarled old fingers went slack.”
― Evan Maxwell, All the Winters That Have Been

“Now he knew differently.
He had not married because no woman had ever really stood a chance. All of them suffered in comparison with the impossible standard, the magical woman with the raven hair and the intelligent, enigmatic smile, the woman he could not win, the woman who would not have him, the woman he had never meant to hurt but whom he had hurt more than he believed possible.
In that instant Dane understood what Dewey had really meant. There was no grave on earth big enough to hold his regrets, because he would be there, cursing himself through all eternity.”
― Evan Maxwell, All the Winters That Have Been

“Helen felt her face flush. She discovered that she could not meet Dane's gaze. As long as he did not look at her, she was all right. Even while she was touching him, massaging the muscles of his back, she could control her response to him. But now, when she tried to look into the eyes that mirrored his soul, she flinched.”
― Evan Maxwell, All the Winters That Have Been

“The attraction was as powerful as the turning of the seasons. Dane had not consciously set out to seduce Helen; he hadn't needed to be conscious of that. It was as inevitable as breathing.”
― Evan Maxwell, All the Winters That Have Been

“Instead of healing the past with words, he and Helen had reached a point where words were suddenly too dangerous to be used.”
― Evan Maxwell, All the Winters That Have Been