Helena Weibel

“My sons have all grown now, so I'm down from five washers to one, but one takes just as long.”
― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

“Voices in the forest tell of dark and twisted enchantments - as dark and twisted as the roots and grasping branches of the trees themselves. Even the most gnarled tree is eloquent in the telling of its own tale.”
― Brian Froud

“Often they wore their hair in pin curls and a turban, getting their hair ready for—what? This still is an American custom. You see women everywhere in pink hair rollers. It’s some sort of philosophical or fashion statement. Maybe there will be something better, later.”
― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories

“The first mystery was that the rows of candles under each of the statues of Jesus and Mary and Joseph were all flickering and trembling as if there were gusts of wind when in fact the vast church was shut tight and none of the heavy doors were open. I believed that the spirit of God in the statues was so strong it made the candles flutter and hiss, tremulous with suffering. Each tiny burst of light lit up the caked blood on Jesus’s bony white feet and it looked wet.”
― Lucia Berlin, A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories