Gin Phillips > Quotes

“She cannot think of such things and still function, and she has needed to function, and she has never wanted to be one of those women who won't let their children eat raw cookie dough or wander a block down the street without a chaperone, and you have to manage the terror or you can never watch your child walk out the front door. And here they are where death is shoving its bloody snout in their faces, and she has not considered it, not really, because she has some vague idea of what she will unleash if she does, the great gaping chasm that will open up. That is what you do when you have a child, isn't it, open yourself up to unimaginable pain and then try to pretend away the possibilities.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“A considerable part of parenting is pretending moods that you do not entirely feel.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“She doesn’t picture them as Arabic—she has been wondering, of course. But they do not sound like that kind of terrorist. They sound like young, obnoxious white men—aren’t they always young white men?—and she is not sure whether this makes them more or less dangerous than fanatics on a jihad.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“…there was a pattern to how things were done, rules we followed. Not following meant not knowing what might happen.”
― Gin Phillips, The Well and the Mine

“I hand over a lot of things when I'm home. Mom tells me she doesn't like my shirt I want to buy, and I hand it over. Not the shirt itself, but my wish for that shirt. I want to watch one television show and she wants to watch another one -I hand that over too. It's easier that way. I even hand over my toenails when she asks. But I think sometimes you need to put a thing in a box -even if the box is inside your head -and store it away for yourself.”
― Gin Phillips, The Hidden Summer

“With a lover you might have a perfect comfort with each other’s body, a sense that his body belongs to you and yours to him, and you might have total unselfconscious freedom to put a hand on his thigh, to put your mouth on his in the way you know he likes best, for him to curl around you in bed, pelvis to pelvis—but the two of you are still, ultimately, two different bodies, and the pleasure comes from the difference.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“Such a system of checks and balances -- parenting -- of projections and guesswork and cost-benefit ratios.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“Life is blood and death and fear and joy and fierce architecture, man.”
― Gin Phillips

“You cannot know a wild thing.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“That is what you do when you have a child, isn’t it, open yourself up to unimaginable pain and then try to pretend away the possibilities.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“She inhales slow and long. The tremors have stopped. She is still and solid and ready, a thing carved for a purpose.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“There are beautiful things. Pay attention.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“I don’t really know how Dr. Doom feels about scarves,” she says.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“With Lincoln, the line between their two selves is blurred. She bathes him and wipes off every bodily fluid, and he sticks his fingers in her mouth or catches his balance with a hand on the top of her head. He catalogues her freckles and moles as carefully as he keeps track of his own scrapes and bruises. He does not quite know that he is a being apart from her. Not yet. For now, her arm is as accessible as his arm—her limbs are equally his limbs. They are interchangeable.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“Quando ero piccola, e fissata con la combustione spontanea umana, il voto e cose del genere, aveva letto una storia che forse, pensa ora, era in uno di quesi suoi libroni pieni di fantasmi. C'era un uomo il cui diavolo aveva dato un orologio che poteva fermare il tempo. l'uomo non doveva far altro che premere un bottone sull'orologio, e la sua vita si sarebbe bloccata per sempre, immutabile. Non sarebbe mai morto. Non sarebbe mai invecchiato. Avrebbe vissuto ogni giorno esattamente come il giorno presente. Doveva solo scegliere il momento e premere il bottone. Ma non era mai pronto a farlo... Continuava a pensare che gi sarebbe piaciuto incontrare la donna giusta, e poi, quando credeva di averla conosciuta, decideva che gli sarebbe piaciuto diventare padre; poi, quando il figlio era arrivato, non fu più così sicuro che la donna fosse quella giusta, poi voleva guadagnare di più, e alla fine diventò vecchio e il diavolo venne a reclamare la sua anima. Il diavolo gli disse che be', erano secoli che ricorreva a quel trucchetto, e l'inghippo era che nessuno premeva mai quel bottone. Nessuno era mai disposto a dire che quel momento - questo momento - era quello perfetto.”
― Gin Phillips

“I just want to know if a sound can create a boy. Or, if a woman becomes a mother when she thinks she hears a baby crying for her. —ELIZABETH HUGHEY “QUESTIONS FOR EMILY”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom

“God was good, but he might decide to send you to hell.”
― Gin Phillips, The Well and the Mine

“Such a system of clocks and balances - parenting - of projections and guesswork and cost-benefit ratios.”
― Gin Phillips, Fierce Kingdom