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141 " The snowflakes came down like little bits of newspaper "
― Heather O'Neill , Lullabies for Little Criminals
142 " My dad had told me that if you stayed out after nine and you were a girl it meant that you wanted to have sex with whoever was passing by. He told me that if I got raped after nine o'clock the courts would probably say I deserved it. "
143 " The pawn dealer was always impressed by Pierrot’s perspicuity when it came to selecting the paintings. He always plucked incredible works of art, the most valuable pieces in the collection. "
― Heather O'Neill , The Lonely Hearts Hotel
144 " Every family is a cruel, intransigent monarchy. "
― Heather O'Neill , When We Lost Our Heads
145 " C'est ce que fait Dieu, chaque nuit. That's what God has to do every night on an infinite scale. He invented the whole universe, and now he has to pay attention to it. Otherwise all the stars will go out one by one. We complain that he sometimes doesn't get around to the things we want him to, but look up at the sky! Always more spectacular, the people say. Always more spectacular... Les gens en veulent toujours plus. "
146 " He lay on his back, floating in the large bath, his penis like a lily pad. "
147 " She’d never seen the ocean before. It was so vast compared to the rivers she’d seen. The sand resembled brown sugar. The seagulls leaped up and down as if they were at the ends of yo-yos. The waves made the sound of someone biting into an apple. When they crashed, they were a hundred thousand chorus girls raising up their dresses at once. And then the water receded again like the train of a jilted bride walking off into the distance. "
148 " I found your act truly transcendent.” “This was nothing. I used to have a wife who worked the lights. Because we’d been together for so many years, we were so amazingly coordinated. I really seemed like I was supernatural. I wish that you could have seen the act then.” He poured them each a tumbler of gin. “But then I cheated on her. At first I thought she was turning the spotlights on and off at the wrong times and in the wrong places on purpose. But then, you know, I realized it was because I’d broken our trust. "
149 " The only time the world shows you any favor, or cuts you any slack, is during that very brief period of courtship where the world is trying to fuck you for the first time. "
150 " He always had to act in an obnoxiously idiosyncratic way. "
― Heather O'Neill , The Girl Who Was Saturday Night
151 " She felt jealousy pounding like enemy soldiers at the gate. "
152 " It showed her that a person’s personality could change radically, that you could never really know someone. In fact, you could probably never know yourself. You could think of yourself as the most fun-loving, generous person but actually be cutthroat and indecent. "
153 " the violent delight of female desire. "
154 " Whereas the Greeks had Zeus and Athena, we had people who still lived in Verdun. They had a lot to bear on their shoulders. They had to invent the whole world themselves. They were supposed to have supernatural powers and achieve sainthood. When really they just found themselves peering into the mirror above the bathroom sink, looking to see how they were aging. Sitting in the bathtub, smoking a cigarette, terrified of death like the rest of us. "
155 " didn’t want this. They didn’t want to populate this horrible land that was snow and rocks and skinny wolves. They spoke to their children through gritted teeth. That’s where the Québec accent came from. The nation crawled out from between their legs. "
156 " my father encouraged me to enter medicine. He told me it was much nobler to worry about humans than about bugs. But you know, he was wrong. Because people are wicked. They are cheaters and liars and degenerates and drunks, and the science of medicine just keeps them alive so they can murder and commit even more sins. But I have yet to find anything about the workings of insects that has disappointed me. "
157 " We all struggle with contradictions. Contradictions are marvelous. If you don’t believe that everything contains contradictions, then there is very little you can understand. We know ourselves by embracing what we are not. We become good by taking evil head-on. "
158 " Violence never gives you a specific feeling that it’s time to knock it off. That’s because it is impossible to satisfy. "
159 " If you can imagine something, then it is possible within the physical laws of this universe. So says some Greek philosopher. "
160 " But wasn’t it better to have someone who was always gushing annoyingly about love than someone who was reserved with it? "