“We can’t always tell the whole story about ourselves.”
― Tree of Smoke
― Tree of Smoke
“The scene before her flattened, lost one of its dimensions, and the noise dribbled irrelevantly down its face. Something was coming. This moment, this very experience of it, seemed only the thinnest gauze. She sat in the audience thinking--someone here has cancer, someone has a broken heart, someone's soul is lost, someone feels naked and foreign, thinks they once knew the way but can't remember the way, feels stripped of armor and alone, there are people in this audience with broken bones, others whose bones will break sooner or later, people who've ruined their health, worshipped their own lives, spat on their dreams, turned their backs on their true beliefs, yes, yes, and all will be saved. All will be saved. All will be saved.”
― Tree of Smoke
― Tree of Smoke
“War is ninety percent myth anyway, isn’t it? In order to prosecute our own wars we raise them to the level of human sacrifice, don’t we, and we constantly invoke our God. It’s got to be about something bigger than dying, or we’d all turn deserter.”
― Tree of Smoke
― Tree of Smoke
“The movie’s not over till everybody’s dead.”
― Tree of Smoke
― Tree of Smoke
“We in Purgatory sing fondly of Hell.”
― Tree of Smoke
― Tree of Smoke
Elizabeth’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Elizabeth’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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