Alexis Rawlins

“I looked at the faces around me and I knew mine was like theirs. Faces with the blood drained away, tight faces, worried, lost. Faces like flowers torn from their roots and stuffed into a pretty vase, the colours draining fast. I had to get away from that town.”
― John Fante, Ask the Dust

“There’s a word for your impulse, Louise. Cacoëthes, I said to her. The urge to do something somewhat wrong. Not something unspeakable or horrific. Just something you know is a bad idea.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Sentence

“I wish to marry her . . . But she has one drawback, her attitude is uncooperative.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

“It is easy to find a logical and virtuous reason for not doing what you don’t want to do.”
― John Steinbeck, East of Eden