Sarah Bird > Quotes

“I shrug and smile amiably the way you do when you're in a foreign country and have no idea what anyone is saying, so you end up grinning and nodding your way into a three-way with a henna vendor and a camel.”
― Sarah Bird, How Perfect Is That

“Going beyond sarcasm straight to out-and-out insult is delicious, like wriggling out of a pair of Spanx.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“In a lot of ways, Mom is kind of badass.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I read once that it takes fourteen miles for an oil tanker to change course. The same change for mothers and daughters must take a nearly equal number of years. But in all those miles and years there does come one precise moment, one discrete point in an infinite vastness, when you start heading in an entirely new direction. I know that, for better or for worse, Aubrey and I have hit that moment when instead of arguing with me, fighting to convince me to accept what she wants, she states in a steady, even way that doesn't ask for my permission or seem ready to bristle when I don't offer it, "Mom, I have to go.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“Do you like the sunset I ordered for you?”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I would like whispering with someone who is like me. But no one is.

I think it is because my sizzle doesn't match anyone else's. I want something to happen so bad that it sizzles inside of me. It never stops, but it also never fits any of the choices presented.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I can't recall consciously deciding to trick time, but that is what has happened. Somehow Martin and I, instead of being leashed for all eternity to what happened sixteen years ago, instead of that being the huge Before and After defining my life, have been set free.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“My father." I don't even know what punctuation mark to put after those two words. Lots of exclamation points!!! One lonely question mark? I need a cartoon balloon with every symbol available in it. Something that stands for stunned/terrified/pissed off/excited/depressed/happy/mad.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“At almost any time in the past sixteen years, hearing him admit how much the sound of my voice, even channeled through our daughter, still affected him would have felt like winning. Today, it's close to irrelevant.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“So much is exploding inside of me that I feel like a bag of Orville Redenbacher's in the microwave. Too much has happened all at once. I stagnated for years with nothing happening, and now, all in one day, too much is happening.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I guess that's what my dad did. Stopped agreeing with reality. I could do it for as long as it took me to get from my classroom to the office. He managed it for sixteen years. He must have had more mental discipline than me. Or maybe it wasn't that much of an effort to pretend that I didn't exist.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“the instant she made a point of telling me I was just as good as them, I saw that the whole question was open to debate and she was cheering me on because I was on the losing team”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“That is when I realize that I have the same gift he does: We can give each other back our youth.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I find it hard to hate a man who brings you exactly what you didn't even know you craved.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“Our lives are spent plopped on the gluteal upholstery for eight hours a day with only imaginary friends for company, spinning lies, marinating in envy, and wondering when the Pulitzer committee is going to twig to our brilliance.”
― Sarah Bird, Recent Studies Indicate: The Best of Sarah Bird

“I guess that after three straight years of my not being anything -- not emo, not Christian, not prep, not jock, not ghetto, not punk, not hipster, not skank, not prude, just a half-assed band geek -- no one can believe I'd do anything so well defined as lie. I like my new superpower.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I want to go to the mother, take her hand, and tell her that although she and her daughter believe that every bad choice the daughter has ever made in life is her fault, it's not. It's really, really not.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“As she swallow a few more drops, I whisper to my child's namesake, "The first of untold numbers of sweet things you will taste in this life." It is my blessing.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“I guess I have to thank Shupe and all that marching for something, because my butt is as springy as a bag of Gummi Bears.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“How exactly are you supposed to force your way into someone's life? Like I said, I have nothing she wants anymore. Not even, or especially not, my love.”
― Sarah Bird, The Gap Year

“Ahead was an ocean of rabbit brush bursting with yellow blossoms. The prairie under hoof was lavender in the dimming light.”
― Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

“In the whole, long war, Seceshes never took one black prisoner of war. It was slavery or death if they caught you.”
― Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

“You traitor! We took you out of darkest Africa, got you civilized, gave you the word of our Redeemer Jesus Christ, and this is the thanks?”
― Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

“Yes, yes, Carter, I see your point. We simply let her ride away. We’ll muster her out later. Discharge her for medical reasons. Have the quack in town sign the papers. You’re right. Who cares if she tells her story? No one will ever believe that a woman served for two years in the Buffalo Soldiers. Most citizens can’t believe niggers of any sex can be real soldiers. Yes, let her go.”
― Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

“Fact is, the Rebels were trapped so tight in their harebrained dream of what the South was, even death wouldn’t release them.”
― Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

“This was news to me and gives you an idea of how different men were with their friends. Had Lem and I been girls, of the normal sort rather than my tomboy brand, we’d of known everything about each other from favorite color to which of our friends riled our nerves so bad one of us was bound to stick an ice pick in her. I surely would of known that my best friend shoed horses, making him the one person, giant or midget, no cavalry outfit could do without.”
― Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

“Dry your tears, Queenie. Only one thing world cares less about than a black man’s tears, that a black woman’s. You be dead soon anyway. You not half as tough as you think you are.”
― Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

“I worried I might have a heart as evil and unfeeling as those savages. Just like back in the barracks, all I could think was, What about Clemmie? What about Iyaiya? And I sure didn’t see any answers in the faces twisted with rage for a corn husk doll.”
― Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

“am John Horse, headman of the Black Seminoles. I led the only successful slave rebellion in the history of this country. Three times I defeated the Army of the United States of America in the swamps of Florida and kept my people free. Have you heard my story?” For the only time I knew of, the Sergeant stumbled before answering, “No, sir, I have never before heard of people of color defeating the U.S. Army.” John Horse shrugged. “Of course not. We did what our enemies fear most. Why would they share the tale? Three times the army came into the swamps of Florida to claim us. And three times we beat them back. I will tell you of my people’s victories, Sergeant, so that you will know who John Horse and the Black Seminoles are. So that you and your Buffalo Soldiers will come to fight beside us. No matter who the enemy is.”
― Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen

“Speak no more of the hardships you’ve endured,” Sheridan said. “Not with more than half a million souls, yours and ours, lying in their graves because, for the most selfish of reasons, you willful, prideful, ignorant, arrogant, traitorous Rebels would destroy the finest country our Almighty Lord ever set upon His benighted earth.”
― Sarah Bird, Daughter of a Daughter of a Queen