Alice And Thomas Quotes

“The two of them had fallen into the habit of bartering knowledge whenever she visited. He schooled her in jazz, in bebop and exotic bossa nova, playing his favorites for her while he painted- Slim Gaillard, Rita Reys, King Pleasure, and Jimmy Giuffre- stabbing the air with his brush when there was a particular passage he wanted her to note. In turn, she showed him the latest additions to her birding diary- her sketches of the short-eared owl and American wigeon, the cedar waxwing and late warblers. She explained how the innocent-looking loggerhead shrike killed its prey by biting it in the back of the neck, severing the spinal cord before impaling the victim on thorns or barbed wire and tearing it apart.
"Good grief," he'd said, shuddering. "I'm in the clutches of an avian Vincent Price.”
― Tracy Guzeman, The Gravity of Birds

“Why do we lack the capacity to celebrate small bits of perfection? Unless it's obvious on a grand scale, it's not worth acknowledging. I find that extremely tiresome."
"Birds are perfect. Yet most people completely overlook them."
"Well, if birds are perfect, then you are as well. And I can't imagine anyone failing to notice you, Alice.”
― Tracy Guzeman, The Gravity of Birds

“Do not let grief be the only map you carry, lest you lose your way back to happiness.”
― Tracy Guzeman, The Gravity of Birds