Home > Author > Eleanor Henderson
1 " Jude had witnessed all of this with the dejected respect one had for people with destructive talents, like winning hamburger-eating contests. "
― Eleanor Henderson , Ten Thousand Saints
2 " Later, months later, when Jude thought back to the way it all went down -how did a burnout like him end up straight edge?- he'd remember that ambulance, just like the one he'd been unconscious inside. Its red cross, when viewed from the right angle, was an X on its side. "
3 " Jude's desire for girls was indiscriminate feverish and complete he wanted them all equally and he wanted them not at all. Blondes and brunettes big ones or small ones - they were cold fragile impenetrable creatures all desirable as they were undesirable all perfumed and pretty. "
4 " He, Teddy and Eliza entered the room just as someone was snapping a picture: they would be forever captured in a photo they didn't belong in, blinking against the flash. "
5 " She's too drunk to remember all the words, but it doesn't matter - he already knows them. It's his song, the one he was named for, and she's sung it since he was a baby. He knows all about carrying the world on your shoulders, all about letting her into your heart, all about making the sad song better. "
6 " and the sky was like a deep blue sheet unfurled above him, like the sheet his mother would put on his bed, letting it hang in the air for a moment before it dropped. "
7 " He knows all about carrying the world on your shoulders, all about letting her into your heart, all about making the sad song better. "
8 " She cried. Her shoulders shook. It was terrible, the sound she made, the sound of her own strangled voice, and her hate stood up and turned on Genus. Juke had no intention of allowing them to marry - what a fool she'd been to believe his word! - but what kind of man would want to marry her? A girl with no tongue, a girl who made a sound like that? Was he as bad as Juke, loving only her silence after all, her weakness? What good would it do to tell him? What could he do to protect her? Quick as a whip, she slipped her arm from his hands and ran back to the big house. "
― Eleanor Henderson , The Twelve-Mile Straight
9 " Girls irritated her, intimidated her, and finally bored her; around girls she became a territorial, sniffing their asses, showing her teeth. It was not a part of herself she liked. Around boys she was herself, she could relax; she had nothing to win but them. "
10 " That was how Juke felt on the porch of String Wilson’s new house. He wanted, and he didn’t want to want. "
11 " Elma was filled with a funny combination of relief and regret. It was the feeling she had after getting a crying baby to sleep—even though she finally had some peace, she always felt a little lonesome. "
12 " The road gang was filled with men who had stolen bread and coats and tomatoes off the vine, some asking to be caught. He too found himself resigned to it. "
