Lise McClendon > Quotes

“I am a book.

Sheaves pressed from the pulp of oaks and pines
a natural sawdust made dingy from purses, dusty
from shelves.
Steamy and anxious, abused and misused,
kissed and cried over,
smeared, yellowed, and torn,
loved, hated, scorned.

I am a book.

I am a book that remembers,
days when I stood proud in good company
When the children came, I leapt into their arms,
when the women came, they cradled me against their soft breasts,
when the men came, they held me like a lover,
and I smelled the sweet smell of cigars and brandy as we sat together in leather chairs,
next to pool tables, on porch swings, in rocking chairs,
my words hanging in the air like bright gems, dangling,
then forgotten, I crumbled,
dust to dust.

I am a tale of woe and secrets,
a book brand-new, sprung from the loins of ancient fathers clothed in tweed,
born of mothers in lands of heather and coal soot.
A family too close to see the blood on its hands,
too dear to suffering, to poison, to cold steel and revenge,
deaf to the screams of mortal wounding,
amused at decay and torment,
a family bred in the dankest swamp of human desires.

I am a tale of woe and secrets,
I am a mystery.

I am intrigue, anxiety, fear,
I tangle in the night with madmen, spend my days cloaked in black,
hiding from myself, from dark angels,
from the evil that lurks within
and the evil we cannot lurk without.

I am words of adventure,
of faraway places where no one knows my tongue,
of curious cultures in small, back alleys, mean streets,
the crumbling house in each of us.

I am primordial fear, the great unknown,
I am life everlasting.
I touch you and you shiver, I blow in your ear and you follow me,
down foggy lanes, into places you've never seen,
to see things no one should see,
to be someone you could only hope to be.

I ride the winds of imagination on a black-and-white horse,
to find the truth inside of me, to cure the ills inside of you,
to take one passenger at a time over that tall mountain,
across that lonely plain to a place you've never been
where the world stops for just one minute
and everything is right.

I am a mystery.

-Rides a Black and White Horse”
― Lise McClendon

“Don’t get between the moments you want to live in by overthinking them. Succumb to the joy.”
― Lise McClendon, The Frenchman

“about the legal profession”
― Lise McClendon, The Bennett Sisters Mysteries Vol 1-4

“Tristan the child had been gone for a long time. He had gone where children go, slipped away into manhood as if he’d never fit into her arms, never cried on her shoulder, never run to her with a skinned knee. He was his own person now, not a child but independent, free to make his own choices — or would be very soon. Even though her heart hurt it was everything she wanted for him.”
― Lise McClendon, Blackbird Fly

“No one knows why they're born. You are simply brought forth in love. You arrive, and then everything else is guesswork. You choose a path, or it chooses you. You protest a lot ,or accept it willingly. It doesn't matter. It's yours, you own it. And now you have to live with it.”
― Lise McClendon, Blackbird Fly

“Possibility. Was that all that it took to feel alive? Could it be that it wasn’t getting the thing you desire itself but the anticipation, the struggle, the dream of it that makes living so amazing? Was it that simple?”
― Lise McClendon, Bennett Sisters Mysteries Volume 1 & 2

“spring.” Still strange to say, but better. Getting better all the time, as John and Paul would say. She had been playing the Beatles full blast while she painted, singing whenever the mood hit her, which was surprisingly often. So smart of Annie to think of sending the CDs with her. Those old songs made her feel young again.”
― Lise McClendon, The Bennett Sisters Mysteries Vol 1-4

“Anne R. Allen”
― Lise McClendon, A Sampling of Sleuths: Short Stories from Bingeworthy Mystery Authors