Allie Ray > Quotes

“Then came July like three o'clock in the afternoon, hot and listless and miserable.”
― Allie Ray, Holler

“You've gotten to play big fish in this little pond, but you don't' know what it is to be a bottom feeder in a place like this.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Something unnamable fit between them and for now it was too delicate to put words to. Even if Lars spoke better English.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Nothing passes in a small town.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“MARGARET. Perhaps I have lost my mind, Anne. It's the only thing I have left to lose, you know. Cary's gone and died and left me with nothing, not even my dignity.”
― Allie Ray, The Last Will and Testament

“He said, "Go and sin no more."

And let me tell you, I was gonna.”
― Allie Ray, Holler

“Her skin smelled like orange and vinegar and bleach and sweat--a curious and honest combination. Bared down to herself: the woman who made something of messes; who scrubbed off sins and carelessness to the bright, new thing beneath.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Spring was coming, either way, even in nasty old March---in like a lion, out like a lamb. That's what folks say. But that year, it came less like a lion and more like a mule with a skittish streak and muscly haunches; one solid kick and that was all. One hard, white freeze and that was all.”
― Allie Ray, Holler

“He's all hot air and bollocks, love. And too dense to know cruel and clever ain't always the same thing.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Don't say much, do you?"
Lars shrugged. "My English."
"Yeah, your English, but you ain't much for talking regardless. I can tell."
Lars offered a thin smile. "People can always tell."
"What's that mean?"
"People say...much to me, because...eh...they know I do not stop them.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Cakes look good and newborn babies are beautiful; I'm so goddamn gorgeous it's a crime in the east half of the state.”
― Allie Ray, Children of Promise

“I knew what my mama did, but I never feared her ghost.”
― Allie Ray, Holler

“Do you know, every time I thought I'd cut you.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Some people said their mothers were the glue that held the family together; others called them the backbone. But Mama was the tendons. The nerves. The supple, giving fat---

Mama would not have liked the comparison. Dalton kept it to himself. And still, rather saw it as a compliment. Mama had softened the blows. Cushioned sharp bones from grinding into one another. Encompassed every strange and contrary part of their family like a warm blanket. Filled in the gaps.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“The difference is, Jimmy was her husband and he's dead, and you're alive and you're a jackass."

"That's real sweet, Daddy. Wish you'd saved it for my next birthday card.”
― Allie Ray, Children of Promise

“And his eyes weren't so gray; really were blue, after all. Really were quite bright and deep and brilliantly blue--like a summer sky or the ocean, she'd wager, though she had not seen the ocean. Had never seen anything, anything so blue as his eyes...”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“I loved you all my life," he said. "Now ain't I a fool?”
― Allie Ray, Holler

“As a rule I don't fuck about with fellows who were in the Philippines.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“Except that a lie was only easy on the surface; only easy, really, before it's spoken. Then it got hard, and heavy, and painful. It grew, transformed, drawing on nerves, loosening tendons, opening joints. It stole her breath, her sleep, her peace.”
― Allie Ray, Children of Promise

“He knew whom she saw---whom everybody saw---when they looked in his face. Why on earth do I care about you? He couldn't help that he looked so much like his father, and he knew she was thinking about Daddy. But he still felt the harsh sting of her pain, and he always wondered...he always wondered if she faulted him a little bit for it.”
― Allie Ray, Children of Promise

“Most of us don't ever get to do the important scenes, all right? ...But--but that's all right, see? Because even if you're just giving 'em a cheap scene, you got their attention.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“She drew closer to him in the cold room, settled into a dip in the mattress she'd made her own, and by morning he had found his place around her.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“NIGEL. Great Scott. How is it the two of you ever came to be married?

DOLLY. Jeeze, um...We met only this one time at a party, and I thought I was, you know, late. And my ma said I wasn't gonna have no fatherless baby, so she made us get married. Only a couple weeks later it turned out to be a false alarm.

IGOR. One of the great love stories of our time.”
― Allie Ray, The Last Will and Testament

“Believe you me, the loss of loving someone's powerful. It's powerful.”
― Allie Ray, Children of Promise

“He could imagine his father kicked back in his seat, a disapproving frown set under his heavy mustache; That boy is a fool. Junior wasn't a boy, but he was sure he was a fool, married to a woman who wouldn't even love him if it was up to her, and who wouldn't dance with him besides.”
― Allie Ray, Children of Promise

“And I can't think what that must be like, to have a thing so beautiful inside you nobody will see.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“I'd marry you tonight, baby, if I didn't want to see you in a wedding dress so bad.”
― Allie Ray, Inheritance

“But just the same he was heading out of Hanger's Hollow, winding his way out of the black pitted heart of coal country and down into the electric buzz of life; down into the city with people breathing, laughing, filling the air with noise. Filling the dark with light, all night long. Holding back the loneliness of the woods all around them with both hands; pushing, daring the utter blackness to dim their glow.”
― Allie Ray, Children of Promise

“Nothing has ever happened to Murphy, Coop can tell. Murphy happens to other people.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Was I to go on living forever in love with a man who had no care for me, and never had? Was that what he wrote in the dedication? I hadn't lived my whole life. I was only twenty-two years old; and was I to love him for the rest of it, miserable and lonesome? Was that what James Sutton thought of Ozark women---women like me? That we just go on and on for want and never do find peace?

He had us all wrong. At least, he had me all wrong.”
― Allie Ray, Holler