Dan Chaon Quotes

“The pirates would kiss Hayden, and sometimes they would cut off a hank of hair - 'as a reminder of yer kisses, me lad' - and one of them even cut off a piece of his earlobe.
This particular pirate was Bill McGregor, and he was the one Hayden feared the most. Bill McGregor was the worst of them - and at night when everyone else was asleep, Bill McGregor would come looking for Hayden, his step slow and hollow on the planks of the deck, his voice a deep whisper.
Boy,' he would murmur. 'where are you, boy?'
After Bill McGregor cut off the piece of Hayden's earlobe, he decided that he wanted more. Every time he caught Hayden, he would cut a small piece off of him. The skin of an elbow, the tip of a finger, a piece of his lip. He would grip the squirming Hayden and cut a piece off of him, and then Bill McGregor would eat the piece of flesh.”
― Dan Chaon, Await Your Reply

“Above the wrist? Or below the wrist?”
― Dan Chaon, Await Your Reply

“On the seat beside him, in between him and his father, Ryan's severed hand is resting on a bed of ice in an eight-quart Styrofoam cooler.”
― Dan Chaon, Await Your Reply

“Miles away, the red taillights of semi-trucks were moving along the interstate, and Dustin was suddenly aware that there were people inside them, that they were traveling to distant places and they would never know that he and Rusty were watching them. It made him feel a strange, tingling kind of ache.”
― Dan Chaon, Ill Will

“Unfortunately, there can be no doubt that man is, on the whole, less good than he imagines himself or wants to be. Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.”
― Dan Chaon, Ill Will