Laura Furman > Quotes

“She was the curator of her marriage, collector of swift quotes and unremarked-upon sensations.”
― Laura Furman, The Mother Who Stayed: Stories

“For the biographer, the final clue to character lies in the yet unread - the scribbled note, the diary page, a notation in the margin of a draft - until the day when even the most devoted portraitist of the dead says, "Enough!" Working in the service of the dead, biographers quit their labors only when the sole remaining task is the impossible - resurrection.”
― Laura Furman, The Mother Who Stayed: Stories

“You know why we’ll never give up cars—because riding in cars at night is so beautiful, it’s telling stories in a cave with the darkness kept out, the dash lights for the embers of the fire.”
― Laura Furman, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2016

“Even more terrifying is the decision to allow the fire to continue smoldering, because the brighter you let it get, the more terrible the darkness should you ever let it out.”
― Laura Furman, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2016

“My father, who during their courtship was thrilled to discover my mother’s love for the color red, had proposed to her with a lab-created ruby. In this final year before meeting Joaquin, my mother could no longer stand to look at her left hand, seeing only a tiny traffic light blinking there, unnaturally pink-red, reminding her that everything had stopped.”
― Laura Furman, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2016

“looking so…empty was the thought that came to Jim. Unburdened, though not in a good way. He had thought, Good”
― Laura Furman, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015