S.G. Redling > Quotes

“You have two emotions—apathy and rage—and nothing in between.” Ellie wanted him to stop, but she could hear the truth in his words. She closed her eyes for his killing blow. “It’s like you’re not even a person. You’re an…organism.” “That’s not true.” Ellie forced her eyes open. “I am a person. I’m just not good at it.”
― S.G. Redling, Flowertown

“Each of us has a door to walk through, maybe a thousand, and if we don’t walk through them, we aren’t alive. We aren’t human until we walk through that gate regardless of what’s on the other side.”
― S.G. Redling, Damocles

“When it comes to danger,” he’d say, “everybody’s chicken. But there are two kinds of chickens—chicken hawks and chicken shits. And it doesn’t matter how high up you throw chicken shit, it ain’t never going to fly.”
― S.G. Redling, The Widow File

“the gate really is inside each of us. Each of us has a door to walk through, maybe a thousand, and if we don’t walk through them, we aren’t alive. We aren’t human until we walk through that gate regardless of what’s on the other side.”
― S.G. Redling, Damocles

“We are outnumbered and outgunned and have every reason to despair. But it is exactly these odds that cause Fortune to smile upon those of us stupid enough to fight to defend what is decent and what is right. They cannot be allowed to silence the cries of the lives they have taken. You know what you need to do.”
― S.G. Redling, Flowertown

“I’m talking about changing the rules of the game, taking control of the field. All these pedestrian notions about morality and dignity are just fairy tales. Here’s the reality. You do what you have to do until you don’t have to do it anymore.”
― S.G. Redling, Redemption Key

“the eternal need to shout “You should have been there!” that compelled humans to tell stories and pass on advice and seek comfort and safety and love among their own kind. The only way that need could be fulfilled was for a community to agree upon a set of sounds and gestures to carry consistent meanings. That agreement became language.”
― S.G. Redling, Damocles

“through”
― S.G. Redling, Flowertown

“poets are nuts. You know that. They are crazier than a bag of bees; it’s been scientifically proven.” “Thanks”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“He’s in your apartment right now—your apartment, where you should be eating Thai food, sitting in your pajamas watching crappy movies on your crappy couch with your crappy boyfriend, getting ready to have some crappy sex.”
― S.G. Redling, The Widow File

“New situations almost invariably invoked fear in human beings, and the only remedy to fear was communication. Without language, without communication, all the numbers in the world would be useless. Without language, fear became deadly.”
― S.G. Redling, Damocles

“Extreme tidiness bespoke a cheapness of character.”
― S.G. Redling, The Widow File

“says ‘doomed’?” “It was something like that.” Ellie”
― S.G. Redling, Flowertown

“You know because you care. And you care enough to take the chance of being wrong.”
― S.G. Redling, Damocles

“He accepted situations at hand as they were, not as he wanted them to be. So he adjusted what he could adjust and what he couldn’t adjust he learned to live with. This”
― S.G. Redling, The Widow File

“Here we go, step two of the Great Grief Showcase: I Knew Him Better Than You. Whoever is being carted off to the morgue is now becoming best friends with dozens of people who wouldn’t have lent them cab fare a week ago.”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“He leads with his brain and plays down his looks and he acts like he would do the same with any woman he desired—he would choose her for her mind.”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“Ronnie fixated on details, he chewed on them the way he chewed on his gluten-free bagels and vegan Nori wraps. He hungered for them and Anna decided to let him starve. February”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“Here we go, step two of the Great Grief Showcase: I Knew Him Better Than You. Whoever is being carted off to the morgue is now becoming best friends with dozens of people who wouldn’t have lent them cab fare a week ago. Upon hearing the victim’s name, Lyle and his kind will suddenly remember months, years, decades they had spent bonding and growing with the deceased, cherishing them and sharing intimacies. Not because they actually give a shit about them but because that intimacy will bump them up higher on the grieving pecking order. Their tears will hurt more, their lives will matter more because a bigger hole has been torn into it by this untimely, tragic death.”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“she’d finally managed to find the right balance of vitamin A and Skin So Soft bath oil to keep the mosquitoes from killing her. She thought that maybe she was happy.”
― S.G. Redling, Redemption Key

“Jefferson snickered. “Hers is bigger than yours.” Prader laughed too. “He’s used to hearing that.” Captain Wagner’s voice was all business. “I’m glad to see this momentous occasion in human history isn’t interfering with your need to be ass clowns. Let’s cut the chatter.”
― S.G. Redling, Damocles

“Warrants and investigations and interrogations are all fingers that make up the fist that they can use with any level of strength justice deems fitting.”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“He loved her and she loved him but it seemed neither of them had the tools or the inclination to examine these odd edges.”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“They loved each other but sometimes that love felt like mutually assured destruction.”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“I don’t have the heart to tell him I’ve already read this book and disagreed with most of it. “It’s going right on my to-be-read list.” “I hope it doesn’t disappoint.” I’m not in the mood for this anymore. I never was, but I’m especially out of patience now. First of all, it’s Tuesday. Tuesdays are hard enough. I soothe frazzled and nervous students. I don’t feel like spending my lunch hour shoring up a grown man. And today? Today I have no care to spare.”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“That’s what death does. It rips someone out of the stream of your life, the life you’re living with varying levels of success and selfishness, and holds that raw absence against you like a measuring stick. Were you kind to them? Did you make their life better? Did you ever think of them, put them first, go out of your way to love them a little more? Did you only think of yourself? Are you sure? Or do you hear the echoes of every less-than-kind thing you ever said, every gentle encouragement you ever withheld out of pettiness, fatigue, or apathy? Too late now. Test over. And unless you’re a psychopath or a saint, you probably failed. You earn a G for guilt. “Are”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“It’s been said that artists thrive at the intersection of narcissism and self-loathing.”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“I’m not here to hand them a diploma for showing up. This is an institution of higher education. Knowledge is something you work for. I don’t hand out trophies for participation”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“where students and faculty agree to treat higher education like the revered institution it is, not like a sleep-away camp.” This”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage

“Every drop of wine would have tasted like tears and loneliness, and I’ve had enough of that. It’s”
― S.G. Redling, Baggage