Steve Brezenoff > Quotes

“We're in love. You can't hurt us.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Brooklyn, Burning

“Your song crept over me as I drifted, the room spinning ever so slightly, and I rolled onto my side and pulled up my knees, facing the back of the couch, and put my hands up together by my chin, like your music was a blanket I could gather around me.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Brooklyn, Burning

“I probably loved him as best as I knew how.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Brooklyn, Burning

“Voilà,” she says, and not like your aunt says it either, unless your aunt is a sophisticated French actress from the 1960s whose breath makes you feel faint—in a good way. I’m not so sure I care at all that she’s better than me, as long as she keeps saying things in French.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Guy in Real Life

“Poor boy. With a name like Atticus, every word he utters ought to be inspired and wise, spoken with a voice that compels all within earshot to sit up and listen. I wonder how disappointed Atticus’s parents must be. Such a noble and lofty name full of great expectations, and they end up with a heavyset boy with a prominent brow and underdeveloped frontal lobe who says “um” a lot and scratches himself in the cafeteria.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Guy in Real Life

“I sat up straight and looked down at my pad, and then I realized: I'd been sketching you, really. I mean, I'd drawn the lamp, and the chaos on the desk, but I'd given it your soul. I'd given that lamp your optimism, your bright face looking down on all the havoc.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Brooklyn, Burning

“Then I looked up. I didn't notice that your ears stick out, just a little, so you look like a pixie sometimes, or an elf. I didn't notice that the corners of you mouth always seem like they're trying to smile, while the rest of your mouth wants to pout. I didn't notice the little bump on your nose, near the bridge but slightly to the right-the bump I'd trace with my finger over and over, not soon enough. I didn't notice your long hands and rough finger-tips, or the dozens-is it hundreds?-of bracelets on your left wrist, made of busted guitar strings.

I noticed your eyes, because they looked wet; maybe it was a trick of the light-the fluorescent and neon lights falling over your face from the bodega next door. But I didn't think about love, and I didn't see right down to your heart. But I must have stared-did I?-because there was your spirit, right there before me, and when you found my eyes I knew I'd pulled that spirit back from someplace amazing, not Greenpoint, not the summer sidewalk in front of Fish's bar, smelling of old alcohol and piss.

But it must have been a trick of the light, because when you stood up, you were smiling, and your bright eyes looked alive and right there, with me, on Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, Earth.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Brooklyn, Burning

“This song would have no end; it couldn't possibly. This song was forever.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Brooklyn, Burning

“Anyone would know you'd never smoked, and probably never would, because the moment you put a cigarette to your lips and a flame to its tip, a host of heavenly angels would snatch it away and throw it into hell.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Brooklyn, Burning

“What made me love freedom so much, forgive myself finally for one life and one death? But I knew. I knew it was you.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Brooklyn, Burning

“she is one of those great observer types. You’ve no doubt met some, though you might not know it. These people see everything, and they record everything, and they have insight into the motives of people they’ve never spoken a word to. That is Roan’s secret power.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Guy in Real Life

“THE INTERROGATION”
― Steve Brezenoff, The Seals That Wouldn't Swim

“THE SHOW”
― Steve Brezenoff, The Seals That Wouldn't Swim

“He loved his friends, but Clementine's mind was usually in a bucket of paint someplace, or sitting in a kiln with her pottery.”
― Steve Brezenoff, The Case of the Haunted History Museum

“The ecstasy was averted and Konny strode toward the bench, heavily throwing her hips: I might fuck you, I might kill you.”
― Steve Brezenoff, Brooklyn, Burning