Ron Hansen Quotes

“I have no roots anywhere else. I have no 'at home' but here. And I feel doomed. Like I'm riding to Hell on a fast horse. I'm not afraid of dying, but I don't want to die alone. I don't want some no one finding me finished off and asking a sheriff, 'Who's that ?”
― Ron Hansen, The Kid

“Are you even aware of hot hot and cold you are? How you seduce and then withdraw, tantalize and then retreat? Even with men you're like that. You're a mystery to people, you keep us off-balance and guessing. We have to presume what you're thinking or feeling. And instead of being frustrated we find ourselves fascinated, and we make things up about you out of our own hopes and needs and all the dangerous things we're afraid to do.”
― Ron Hansen, The Kid

“As Jesse talked the sun down, the hours late, Zerelda smiled and dreamed of him as he had been and was and would be. It seemed everything about him was dynamic and masculine and romantic ; he was more vital even in his illness than any man she’d ever known.”
― Ron Hansen, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

“Annie partially convinced Zee that Jesse was a preposterous, irresponsible man, but America seemed spellbound by him. Correspondents sought to locate him, mysteries about the James brothers were considered in editorials, reports of their robberies seemed to be such a national addiction that nickel books were being published in order to offer more imaginative adventures. Insofar as it wasn’t them that the James gang robbed, the public seemed to wish Jesse a prolonged life and great prosperity. He was their champion and their example, the apple of their eyes ; at times it even seemed to Zee that she wasn’t Jesse’s only wife, that America had married him too. And it seemed a joy to many of them when a reinvigorated James gang – without the man’s more prudential older brother – robbed the Chicago and Alton Railroad at Glendale, Missouri, in October 1879.”
― Ron Hansen, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

“[John C. Brown] “You ought to keep the Sabbath, Bob.”
[Bob Ford] “You got your religion, I got my own. It isn’t right to spoon it down our throats every Sunday.”
“It’s just that me and the missus, we’re Spirit-fired people, and when you think you’ve got the answer, well, you want to share it.”
“I’d just as soon as you didn’t”, said Bob.”
― Ron Hansen, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

“Oh, he was so dashing and romantic and cast-out by the world, I couldn’t help but love him. […] He was a figure out of a girl’s storybook. Gentle, adoring, dangerous, strong. Surely you must have felt the same things. He has a magic about him. He steps straight into your heart.”
― Ron Hansen, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

“Off in the distance there were galleons of shock-white cumulus coulds gathering in the wide sky's cerulean harbor, and their azure shadows floated over the flatlands. Billy surprised himself by saying: "I love it here. I'll never leave.”
― Ron Hansen, The Kid