Laura Barrow > Quotes

“In a world that was determined to forget, someone had to do the remembering.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“Look back for too long and you’ll end up with a mess of broken dreams and a crick in your neck.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“After everything that happened, I think this was what I’d taken from it. We could never keep every bad thing from happening. All we could do was cherish the good when we had it for however long it was ours.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“How was it that each of her children knew precisely which buttons to push and how much pressure to apply to shatter her? Then again, maybe it was because they’d spent all those months inside her own body, nestled against her heart, that they knew exactly how to break it.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“Men were always there for the fun parts, she thought. Women were always left to pick up the pieces.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“But somewhere inside me, it also felt like I mattered to someone. I mattered enough to someone so much that she would humiliate herself—and me—just to let everyone else know it.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“She’d always meant well, but she loved hard.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“It scared her a little to know she was capable of loving a person so much, that all that love had been waiting there her whole life, like a dormant seed just aching to get out and grow up into something bigger than the cypress trees in the bayou and the pines that shot up all around her yard.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“She was too young. So sorry for your loss. She was lucky to have you. What a tragedy. One by one, they came, and though she knew the messages were sincere, she wasn’t ready to let go of the anger.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“No point in trying to shovel water out of a sinking boat with a slotted spoon,”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“Mama, how can I just leave without all my babies? How can I go home when a piece of my heart is lost?” A howl emanated from within her, piercing Marylynn’s insides so deeply that she wondered if it had actually come from her. How could she have been so careless to misplace a child?”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“She’d been so generous with her time and talents that she hadn’t thought to save anything for herself.”
― Laura Barrow, If We Ever Get There

“then, she would have given anything for a break from her life. But now she wished she had frozen time.”
― Laura Barrow, If We Ever Get There

“I took more after our father with my dark hair, green eyes, and the grace of a linebacker,”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“welcome”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“You’re misremembering. Y’all were too young to understand all the things going on in the family. It wasn’t anything for you kids to be concerned about.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“You can’t keep them small forever,” Charlie used to say when Dennis was learning to drive. “You’ve got to let them go sometime and trust that they know enough to stay out of trouble.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“My relationship with Colton was transactional. I provided food and furnishings, while he provided a warm body and endless commentary on Friday-night football. It wasn’t the life I’d ever pictured for myself, but no matter how many times I’d tried to end it with Colton, he somehow managed to weasel his way back into my life like a stubborn case of head lice.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“winding trail with switchbacks and steep hills and deep ditches filled with steaming piles of manure.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“creature who had stolen her breath and her heart along with all her good sense. She would never be the same. She had a daughter now.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“Then again, maybe it was because they’d spent all those months inside her own body, nestled against her heart, that they knew exactly how to break”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“Sometimes it was worth risking everything to save the ones you love from heartache, from disappointment, sometimes from themselves.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“it had been years since I’d stepped inside a building of worship—unless you counted SoulCycle—and I didn’t have any plans to break my streak.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“one with the scholarship. So”—he shrugged—“I stayed.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“It scared her a little to know she was capable of loving a person so much, that all that love had been waiting there her whole life, like a dormant seed just aching to get out and grow up into something bigger than the cypress trees in the bayou and the pines that shot up all around her yard. She would never be able to put it all back inside her if anything happened to this child, this perfect little”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“The pain of losing him had never really left her, but she’d been able to live with the ache because of all the pieces of himself he’d left behind.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“I knocked tentatively and rearranged my face into something I hoped resembled excitement.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“We could never keep every bad thing from happening. All we could do was cherish the good when we had it for however long it was ours.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“I had no choice but to accept her into my arms, holding her gingerly, the way someone might hold a bomb, completely unsure which way to cradle her wiggly body.”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home

“The good Lord giveth and He taketh away. No point in trying to shovel water out of a sinking boat with a slotted spoon,”
― Laura Barrow, Call the Canaries Home