Furlough Quotes

“Being fired has some of the advantages of dying without its supreme disadvantages. People say extra-nice things about you, and you get to hear them.”
― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

“If you asked Neil today, he would tell you his furlough was in 3-D: dates, delirium, and disaster. I provided the dates, the Greenville girls provided the delirium, and Allie, well, she provided the disaster.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“Singleness can be a wonderful furnace.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“Richmond was my birthplace, but it was merely my launching pad, no home.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“Between high dunes and low dunes and sea oats she walked, a blonde nomad wandering among shorebirds.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“Guys and their initiative - sometimes that too is like extracting meat from the armature of a crab.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“Above the dunes of Pawleys Island a choir of sea oats bent westward, tickling the sunset and waving g'night.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“As if it were a guest of honor bowing out prematurely, the sun sank wide-eyed and mischievous, to where staring was permissible and admiration was the only option, a pastel departure as wondrous and unique as fingerprint.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“It's just that I'd rather get to know you before I get to know your lips.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“Thanks for respecting me.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“I listened again for a voice. But there was no voice tonight, just my obedience. No professional carpenters, just willing bodies. No last-minute detours off the interstate, just eight seats reserved in economy class.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“The plane had seating for twelve, legroom for five, and all the turbulence of Darcy's family life.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“Rich wisdom is better even than rich soil, young Neil. Jose sees now that you grow in wisdom like a weed in manure.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer

“Against a blue sky the tangelo rose swiftly, first opposing gravity, then submitting, caught in the velocity like a ripe comet streaking towards the bonds of matrimony. In its arc flew the virtues of commitment and loyalty and passion, followed by the afterburners of summer — amorous and ablaze. Faster the tangelo descended, an orange blur; poetic, expensive, at once brunette and blonde, rotating so fast that its skin appeared tan, then pale, then something luminous, the color of love.”
― Ray Blackston, A Delirious Summer