Robin Alexander Quotes

“Where ya goin’?” Coleen asked. “I’m taking Lena to dinner, then we’re going dancing.” Coleen threw a hand on her hip. “You don’t smell the gumbo that’s been cooking all day? It’s your favorite. I stuffed every aquatic creature I could find into that pot. Claws and legs are hanging out all over the place.” “I’ll have some tomorrow,” Jorie said as she caught one of the screws that dropped from the blade. “I made pie, damn it. Pecan, just because I know you love it. Bring that woman here for dinner and save yourself a buck or two.” “Oh, no,” Jorie said with a laugh. “I really like her. It’s too soon to expose her to an Andolini dinner.”

“...I’m insane, Jorie thought. She saw herself lying in a hospital bed, her wallet and valuables gone. When asked why she got into a car with a woman she didn’t know, her reply would land her in the psych ward. Well, you see, I have this fantasy lover because, frankly, they’re so much easier to deal with. She never makes a mess, loves my demonic cat, always says the right thing at the right time. I saw this woman, and she was my dream come to life, so I just had to get into the car with her because I’m an idiot...”

“Arleen thanked Pana. Getting off the phone, she thanked Jesus. She smiled. When she smiled she looked like a different person. The press had loosened its grip. From landlords, she had heard eighty-nine nos but one yes. Jori accepted his mother’s high five. He and his brother would have to switch schools. Jori didn’t care. He switched schools all the time. Between seventh and eighth grades, he had attended five different schools—when he went at all. At the domestic-violence shelter alone, Jori had racked up seventeen consecutive absences. Arleen saw school as a higher-order need, something to worry about after she found a house.”

“Oh, Daja," moaned Jory, "you sound just like my parents." She ran from the schoolroom."Well, there's no reason to insult me, "muttered Daja, half offended.”

“Towards the end of the season it is not bad to have the body. To have experienced joy as the mere lifting of hunger is not to have known it less.”

“Innovation, reinventing the invention”

“All my biggest failures began with the smallest compromises.”

“and angle of vision, dust, gravity, solitude, and the part of the law which is the world's waitingand the part of the law which is my waiting,and the part which is my impatience—now; now?—though there are, there really arethings in the world, you must believe me.”

“I like the imp / in impossibility ”

“We’re both made of stars, Jory Birch. Everybody is.”