Anne Whitney Pierce > Quotes

“Raised to be God-fearing, if not religious, both Violet and Faye came to think of all this - their lives as silent, fettered wives and mothers - as the trade-off for marrying well”
― Anne Whitney Pierce, Down to the River

“They're not going far. You wait and see. Ten years from now they'll still be hanging around with their dirty laundry, looking for a hot meal. Kids these days don't really grow up. Have you noticed, Nash? They don't worry about the future. But surprise, the future's here, isn't it? It's all so goddamned different. We grew up so fast. We had to”
― Anne Whitney Pierce, Down to the River

“You can't just pull anger out of a hat and make it work for you. You have to feel bad first. You always have to suffer”
― Anne Whitney Pierce, Down to the River

“Meditation is said to cleanse you, make you peaceful. Peace Faye would welcome, but the cleansing part scares her, as if she might be bleached invisible by the sun, as if some part of her might go whirling down the drain, a part as yet undiscovered, but without which she'll never be whole”
― Anne Whitney Pierce, Down to the River

“There'll be no keeping Chickie from dancing, or dancing from Chickie. It will feed her and gnaw away at her, and in the end it will pull her away. For once a child has an obsession, she no longer has need of a mother”
― Anne Whitney Pierce, Down to the River

“He doesn't want to answer any more questions with "I don't know." He wants his son to be responsible. He'd like him to be brave. Remi just wants to be the good guy, the good father. Just for once, he'd like his son to look up to him, to trust him”
― Anne Whitney Pierce, Down to the River