Catherine Mustread > Recent Status Updates

“ So, I make a decision, right there in the hall. I lean into the sliver of happiness that is in my belly and hug Wilson tight. And then I give him a lightning-fast kiss, right on his mouth. It feels like a surprise, soft and cushiony. “Was that OK?” I ask. He looks like he’s been hit with the Jake Rodrigo stun gun, but he swallows hard and nods fast.”

“The saying is ‘Envy is thin because it bites but never eats,’ ” Papi says.

“ His (Lola’s) favorite was más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo. The devil knows more because he’s old than because he’s a devil.”

"Audrey is quite happy these days. She’s expecting a windfall soon. A significant windfall. It’s too bad someone has to die for her to get it. She’s going to be rich. It’s about time."

William Beardsley hired engineer Carl Pleasant to assist with the design. ...Among the big local business casualties was the Agua Fria River Project west of Phoenix, which had been private effort since the 1880s to dam that river and reclaim land just east of the White Tank Mountains. Waddell Dam, or Frog Tanks Dam, was finally completed in 1927 under the supervision of engineer Carl Pleasant.

"“Tell Abuela to be still in her grave. There is no stopping a girl born stronger than the wind. Let Sonia go.”"

"IT WAS SONIA who washed the bruises on Luis’s face because Señora Clara could not. It was Sonia who combed his thick hair down around his wounds. Sonia who knotted his tie and folded his stiffened hands. When she was through, she sat staring mutely at her friend’s body, ashamed at how she had failed him so completely."

"The coppersmith was ordered to his forge, where he pounded a nugget of metal against his anvil until it revealed the shape of a girl with arms open to world. This was the first milagro ever pinned to Sonia Ocampo. And it was with that simple prick of a prayer charm through her swaddling cloth that her terrible destiny was fixed to her for good."

"... he didn’t grasp my meaning either; or perhaps he couldn’t. We were dealing in such different currencies. Emerence’s dictionary featured filth, scene, scandal, laughing stock of the street and shame. His contained law, order, solutions, solidarity, effective measures. Both phrasebooks were accurate, it was just that they were in different languages."

"I don’t like change. Change has always been dangerous for me. He proved that: coming here with his questions, his charm. The man who came to live in the third-floor apartment: Benjamin Daniels. After he came here, everything changed."

"In my student days, I detested Schopenhauer. Only later did I come to acknowledge the force of his idea that every relationship involving personal feeling laid one open to attack, and the more people I allowed to become close to me, the greater the number of ways in which I was vulnerable."

"I wonder if everything we fear is somehow the same as the unmasking of Son of Sam. Maybe the things that scare us seem more powerful than they truly are when we keep them secret."

"Every rule I know is gone, and we’re in chaos. There are no rules for how a family should work. No rules for how far loyalty should reach. No boundaries on stealing or looting. No limits on how people ruin one another’s lives or how we blame one another for our pain. Now no rules for how we kill each other, either."

"How do you rebuild people? How do you help them trust one another again? It seems so much harder than fixing buildings."

"He raised us to believe that the workers’ right to organize was our family’s only route to power, and I used to joke that we knew Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger songs before we learned any lullabies. He also raised us never to date bankers or Republicans, which we quickly learned were the same thing."

"The only thing I want is the crypt. Just leave me in peace, and don’t try to educate me. I know quite enough already. I wish I knew less. Those who want something from the country are welcome to have it, since you tell me it’s so full of opportunities. I don’t need anyone or anything. Understand that once and for all.”

"If she’d had enough of life, no-one had the right to hold her back. I told her exactly what she should write for the police and she copied it down: ‘I, Polett Dobri, spinster, because of sickness, old age and above all loneliness, have of my own free will ended my life. I leave my belongings to be disposed of by my friends Etel “Sutu” Vámos; Adél, widow of András Kürt; and Emerence Szeredás.’"

JUNK CLEARANCE: "I believe it was from this moment that Emerence truly loved me, loved me without reservation, gravely almost, like someone deeply conscious of the obligations of love, who knows it to be a dangerous passion, fraught with risk."

"Thus far I have lived my life with courage, and I hope to die that way, bravely and without lies. But for that to be, I must speak out. I killed Emerence. The fact that I was trying to save her rather than destroy her changes nothing."

From the preface::. Magda Szabó’s novel is a study of survival tactics, of finding voice out of silence, and of the ways in which authenticity dismisses fakery at every turn not just in art and culture but in a life truly lived, and truly ended.

"And finally, when we curtsy and bow one last time, I can believe that all of me, even the parts that are new and I don’t really understand, are going to be just fine today and one day and always."

"Emerald and a rose for Five Roses. Opal and a pair of wings for the CBD. Ruby and a heart for the Old Square. Sapphire and an oak tree for Moonwood. Amethyst and a human hand for Asphodel Meadows. Tiger’s-eye and a serpent for the Meat Market. And onyx—so black it gobbled the light—and a set of skull and crossbones for the Bone Quarter."

Lolo barely moves. He’s fading like one of those colorful street paintings Mr. Cahill works on. “Everything vanishes,” he told us at the festival. “Live in the moment,” he said. “That’s the whole point.” I swallow hard just thinking about the fact that it’s true about people, too. They vanish, sometimes a little at a time. One day, Lolo won’t know how to move his legs anymore. One day soon, he won’t be able to dance.

no love lost between the six lower Heads in Crescent City, the metropolis formally known as Lunathion. Each Head controlled a specific part of the city: the Prime of the wolves in Moonwood, the Fae Autumn King in Five Roses, the Under-King in the Bone Quarter, the Viper Queen in the Meat Market, the Oracle in the Old Square, and the River Queen—who very rarely made an appearance—representing the House of Many Waters

"Lives that were expendable if it meant a possibility for humans to overthrow those who oppressed them—the magically gifted and long-lived Vanir and, above them, the Asteri, who ruled the planet Midgard from the Eternal City in Pangera."

He might not believe, [but]it stood for order and stability, & for the unknowable and unresolvable, for the human craving for meaning in chaos, and for hope of something beyond the world of pain and endless striving. Some mysteries were eternal and unresolvable by man, there was relief in accepting that, in admitting it. Death, love, the endless complexity of human beings: only a fool would claim to fully understand

"“Everything vanishes eventually,” he says. “Civilizations, species, people. That doesn’t mean they don’t have value while they exist. People will enjoy this work while it’s here. Live in the moment. That’s the whole point.”

"Priests and politicians were equally bad, Allan thought, and it didn’t make the slightest difference if they were communists, fascists, capitalists, or any other political persuasion. But he did agree with his father that reliable people didn’t drink fruit juice. And he agreed with his mother that you had to make sure you behaved, even if you had drunk a bit more than was wise."

"Living with a nine-year-old can be like living with a combination of an investigative reporter and a district attorney.”

“ I’m finding out that “one day” doesn’t arrive all at once. It creeps up on you a little bit at a time, like a skilled assassin.”