Diane Cook > Quotes

“How people felt about one another was always in the voice. In the way they talked to one another when they thought they were alone.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“She hated her mother’s fierce love. Because fierce love never lasted. Fierce love now meant that later, there would be no love, or at least that’s what it would feel like. Agnes wanted a mild mother, one who seemed to love her exactly the same every day. She thought, Mild mothers don’t run away.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“But most of the twenty didn’t know much about science, and many of them didn’t even care about nature. These twenty had the same reasons people have always had for turning their backs on everything they’d known and venturing to an unfamiliar place. They went to the Wilderness State because there was no other place they could go.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“Agnes did not care about this conversation. Who cared about why or how? Who cared about would or wouldn’t? She never understood why the adults were always discussing these words. Should and shouldn’t. Can and can’t. “Is and do,” she muttered to herself. That’s all that mattered. Is and do. Being and doing. Right now, and a little time from now.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“I will land on my feet with a smile on my face.”
― Diane Cook

“I’ll tell her this story and the others with all their complications and confusions because those complications and confusions are what make them true. It feels at times like the only instinct left in me. It’s the only way I know to raise a daughter. It’s how my mother raised me.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“At an age when she might have thought she didn’t need a mother, Bea craved hers more than ever.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“It’s better to miss something you can’t have than think there’s nothing worth missing.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“And she loved Agnes fiercely, though motherhood felt like a heavy coat she was compelled to put on each day no matter the weather.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“Agnes always felt so much younger in her mother’s arms.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“Leaders shouldn’t enjoy leadership, she told herself. Like Glen said, it should be a role one takes because one feels obligated.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“Her mother turned to the fire, now standing shoulder to shoulder with her daughter. Not looking at her, she said, “There are some things you don’t understand. You think you do. But you don’t. I hope you never have to.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“He had been given something special that was being taken away, and he needed someone to blame.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“Carl was strong, decisive, unkind when he needed to be. They just liked Carl better. Carl’s story, as told to them by Carl, was a better story. But Carl, it turned out, hadn’t any grand plan for leadership. No agenda or way forward. He just wanted to be leader and have everything go through him. Once that was secured, he delighted in being the enforcer.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“Now that I have what I wanted, I feel somehow freed up to want more. Free to want without hesitation. I think wanting is man’s natural state. Now want is an insatiable thing in me.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“What she wouldn’t have given for her mother.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“That’s the thing, Bea,” he said, casting his eyes to her briefly. “Now that I have what I wanted, I feel somehow freed up to want more. Free to want without hesitation. I think wanting is man’s natural state.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“The creatures. Agnes had noticed that a mother would only be a mother for so long before she wanted to be something else. No mother she’d ever watched here remained a mother forever.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“They enjoyed being at the top too much. Every chance they had, they tried to subvert a Community decision to follow their own idea, and were gleeful when it worked. Leaders shouldn’t enjoy leadership, she told herself. Like Glen said, it should be a role one takes because one feels obligated.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“Well, I don’t think I like consensus either,” said Frank. “It doesn’t feel very representative.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“What a sad thing, to have never been alive in this place.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“It was soft, tickling. The liquid was cold going on, like dipping her pinky into a winter river's icy slurry. A thrill shot through her neck. Then, everything on her finger closed up., tightened, stopped breathing. She felt it being suffocated. She almost yelped, leapt up to run away. She hated it.
"Okay", Celeste said, "go like this." Agnes opened her eyes, saw Celeste blowing on her own hands, and looked down. The pink was catching light she hadn't even know was present in the dark forest. It looked as thought it moved on her nail, breathed more and more color into itself. She saw the speckles of glitter, not too much, just enough. It was alive, and perfect.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“I’ve watched loss daily, but sometimes it’s my mother I miss the most.”
― Diane Cook, The New Wilderness

“I bring my Fern here, cutting into her night's sleep, because I want her to remember what she knew in the beginning of her life. What I knew my whole young life. The other night when I tried to rouse her, she rubbed her eyes sleepily, whined and kicked. She didn't want to go. She threw the blanket up over her head. Eventually I cajoled her out of bed, but I'm afraid of the day when I can't. When she becomes obstinate. When she becomes different from me. What will we share if we can't share this? Will we be nothing but strangers? I want to grab her in these moments, squeeze her too hard, growl into her hair, never let her go. But she always wriggles free, unfazed, or maybe with a small eye roll. She knows she has everything I can give her. I think of my mother in these moments. She was someone who never did what I expected her to. When she looked at me, I didn't understand what her look meant. She looked at me sharp-eyed, her mouth twisting and pained. As though looking at me hurt her sometimes. I didn't understand it until I had the chance to care for this little Fern and I looked at her and saw all that came before and all that would come after and all its potential awfulness and certain beauty and it was too much for me to bear. I looked away, scared, disgusted, overcome with love, on the verge of crying and laughing, and finally, finally, finally I began to know my mother.”
― Diane Cook

“She did not want her mother's aggressive overtures of love. She wanted her back rubbed, her cheek caressed. She wanted murmurs against her neck. Her hand held lightly. She wanted to not have to ask questions. To be confused. She wanted confessions she didn't have to demand. She hated her mother's fierce love. Because fierce love never lasted. Fierce love now meant that later, there would be no love, or at least that's what it would feel like. Agnes wanted a mild mother, one who seemed to love her exactly the same every day. She thought, mild mothers don't run away.”
― Diane Cook

“Did her needs not matter anymore? Bea shivered at her cold heart. She hit the side of her head to rattle her humanity loose. To think of her daughter first. She didn't realize she'd kept hitting herself until Glen gripped her wrist and brought her arm firmly to her side, held her, and she felt the bitter tears on her face for the first time. She choked sobs into his shoulder. This is motherhood? she thought, furious and brokenhearted as she tried to let go of her own self so she could free her arms to hold up Agnes.”
― Diane Cook

“My mom raising me had already happened. And I knew that everything had turned out okay. But when I had you, I realized that nothing was certain. We were at the very beginning together and anything could happen.”
― Diane Cook