Grace Baker > Grace's Quotes

“But I’ve been thinking about how the trunks of trees bend and curve when they grow next to each other. Their leaves twist to accommodate each other. Their closeness reads on the shape of them, and you can infer the shape of one from the shape of another. When you know someone and you grow together, your shape and form become theirs. And so even though Rob is gone, and there’ll never be another Rob, another friend I’ve known as well or as closely, the impression his life left on me will always be there, and in that sense we haven’t lost him at all.”
― Nicola Dinan, Bellies

“You can take charge of your own life without it being an admission of guilt or fault.”
― Nicola Dinan, Bellies

“Maybe that's what people are supposed to do, sponge out the bad, wring out the suffering as much as we can, even if it stains our hearts and hands.”
― Nicola Dinan, Bellies

“Maybe there isn’t a way,” he said. “Maybe all we can do is wait and hope and endure for as long as we’re able. The food will run out. Our bodies will fail. And the vine will do whatever it’s going to do.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“Trying to remember things.” It was what people did, Amy had decided, as they waited for death; they lay there struggling to remember the details of their lives, all the events that had seemed so impossible to forget while they were being suffered through, the things tasted and smelled and heard, the thoughts that had felt like revelations, and now Jeff was doing this, too. He’d given up. They weren’t going to survive this place; they were going to end just like Henrich, shot full of arrows, the vines coiling and flowering around their bones.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“That was what they were so clearly doing here: they were waiting. And not in any suspense, either, not in any anxiety as to the outcome of their vigil. They were waiting with no apparent emotion at all, as one might sit over the course of an evening, watching a candle methodically burn itself into darkness, never less than certain of the outcome, confident that the only thing standing between now and the end of waiting was time itself.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“all the lies people utter around death in order to comfort themselves, to bury their grief with the body, but here, suddenly, they were true. Die, Eric said in his head. Do it now, just die. And all the while—yes, implacably, inexorably—the Greek’s breathing continued its ragged course.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“he’d believed that he was smarter and more disciplined than the others, and that these traits alone might save them. He was a fool, though; he could see that now. He’d been a fool to cut off Pablo’s legs. All he’d managed to do was prolong the Greek’s suffering. And he’d been a fool—worse than a fool, so much worse—to sit there pouting while, fifteen feet away from him, Amy had choked to death. Even if, through some miracle, he managed to leave this place alive, he couldn’t see how he’d ever be able to survive that memory.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“The miserable misery of the miser,”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“Stacy waited till she was certain he’d fallen asleep, then slipped free of his grasp, edging backward, leaving his hand lying open on the tent’s floor, palm up, slightly cupped, like a beggar’s. She imagined dropping a coin into it, late at night on some dark city street; she pictured herself hurrying off, never to see him again.”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“It will be whatever it is, no? Nothing, something—our believing one thing or another will matter not at all in the end.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“She and Stacy both turned from Eric to smile at Jeff, as if taunting him. He didn’t respond—what was the point? Clearly, it had already been decided: they were going to the village. Pablo finally stopped talking; Mathias was putting the cap back on the water bottle. Jeff shouldered his pack. “Shall we?” he said.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“If you’re not careful, you can reach a point where you’ve made choices without thinking. Without planning. You can end up not living the life you’d meant to. Maybe one you deserve, but not one you intended.” Here he wagged his finger again. “Make sure you think,” he said. “Make sure you plan.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“liar’s smile”
― Scott B. Smith, The Ruins

“By this time tomorrow, they’d all be saved. No one was going to have to drink any urine, any dew.”
― Scott Smith, The Ruins

“TERFs were kicked even deeper into the dumpster where they belong.”
― Chuck Tingle, Straight

“I'm gonna be real with you," I reply. "I don't give a shit.”
― Chuck Tingle, Bury Your Gays

“The beats of this particular story are music to my ears, and I'm certainly not complaining, but they're not the beats I'm used to. Then again, not everything has a perfect structure: a beginning, middle, and end. Not every tale has an act-three synthesis and a dark night of the soul.
Sometimes life just is.”
― Chuck Tingle, Bury Your Gays

“They say you know it’s love when someone offers to drive you to LAX, and right now I’m feeling the love. Most relationships would fall apart if you put them through the high-performance stress test that is currently my life, but for some reason all this tension only serves to make Zeke step up even more. Do I deserve it? Probably not.”
― Chuck Tingle, Bury Your Gays

“You know who the real villain is?” I continue, strolling through the lobby and joining a line of other writers, directors, cinematographers, and actors as they filter inside to find their seats. “Unchecked capitalism and the desire for capitalist systems to monetize other people’s trauma.”
― Chuck Tingle, Bury Your Gays

“On a long enough timeline, endings are inevitable. Tragedy is inevitable. Fortunately, so is joy.”
― Chuck Tingle, Bury Your Gays

“Your stories aren't worth your life."
My stories are my life, I think, but I don't say this.”
― Chuck Tingle, Bury Your Gays

“I wasn’t raised in a household where it was considered abnormal to be gay. So for me to meet people who use the word 'faggot' as an insult, with a derogatory meaning, I can’t take it. I don’t understand it. It’s so foreign to me. I was raised in a household where being gay was like, the most normal thing. You know, my brother is gay, all of my best friends are gay. When my brother came out of the closet, it wasn’t a big deal for my family. Even my grandpa, who is like, super old-school, was like, Good for you! It’s outrageous to me when I see people hate on someone because of their sexuality. I hate the intolerance. I hate the judgment. I hate it so much. Most of my favorite people in my life are gay. It’s something I’m super passionate about, because whenever I would see my friends get bullied, or my brother get hurt for his sexuality, I would become a raging lunatic. I would literally become a raging lunatic because I just can’t take it. When you see someone you love hurting, for such a superficial, bullshit reason, it’s like, how small and spiritually unenlightened and dumb as fuck can a person be? How much further can your head get up your ass that you’re actually judging someone as a person based on their sexuality before you even have a conversation with them?”
― Ariana Grande

“Each day he invited me to witness how he had changed, how love had changed him, how he worked and sang and cherished me. I was in a terrible confusion. Sometimes I thought, but this is your life. Stop fighting it. Or I thought, but I am happy. And he loves me. I am safe. Sometimes, when he was not near me, I thought, I will never let him touch me again. Then, when he touched me, I thought it doesn't matter, it is only the body, it will soon be over. When it was over I lay in the dark and listened to his breathing and dreamed of the touch of hands, of Giovanni's hands, or anybody's hands, hands which would have the power to crush me and make me whole again.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“Love him, said Jacques, with vehemence, love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last, since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, helas! in the dark. And if you think of them as dirty, then they will be dirty - they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty, you can give each other something which will make both of you better - forever - if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

“People, generally, suck.”
― Christopher Moore, The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror

“If you think anyone is sane you just don't know enough about them.”
― Christopher Moore, Practical Demonkeeping

“Children see magic because they look for it.”
― Christopher Moore, Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

“Not unlike the toaster, I control darkness.”
― Christopher Moore, You Suck

“She's so small, yet she contains so much evil.”
― Christopher Moore, Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings