2
" We think the world is steady, rolling through space beneath our feet, day and night, rain and sunlight. And then, one day, you just fall off the planet and drift away, into outer space, and everything you thought was true all the laws that bound your life before, all the rules and norms that kept things in place, that kept you in place, they're gone. And nothing makes sense anymore. Gravity is gone. Love is gone. "
― Nickolas Butler
4
" E lì, nel mezzo del mio salotto, c’era un coyote a quattro zampe con il pelo giallastro; la porta d’ingresso era ancora spalancata. Rimasi pietrificato. Il coyote alzò la testa, mi studiò per qualche secondo e sollevò una zampa tinta di bianco per grattare l’aria tra noi. Non saprei dire quanto siamo rimasti in quella posizione ad annusarci, ma alla fine ho avuto il buon senso di dire con voce tagliente: «Vattene, via, sciò.» Temevo che la mia voce non avrebbe funzionato. E il coyote lo fece, voltandosi lentamente come un cane che aveva ricevuto una ramanzina; tornò verso la porta principale in quella che era diventata un’andatura spavalda, prima di lanciarsi in una corsa vera e propria sulle strisce di prato che separavano la casa dal vialetto e di infiltrarsi nell’erba alta dove vidi il suo pelo bianco-giallo spuntare di tanto in tanto in mezzo ai fiori selvatici. Poi chiusi la porta col lucchetto, una cosa che faccio raramente, eppure la feci. Mi sedetti, e rimasi immobile a lungo. Mi fissai le mani. Mi sentivo vivo, sentivo ogni fibra del corpo che vibrava, ogni atomo energizzato, il sangue che scorreva spavaldo. Vivo qui, ho scelto di vivere qui, perché qui la vita mi sembra reale. Autentica, genuina... non lo so, fattibile. Magari si sentono tutti così, magari no. "
― Nickolas Butler , Shotgun Lovesongs
6
" America, I think, is about poor people playing music and poor people sharing food and poor people dancing, even when everything else in their life is so desperate, and so dismal that it doesn't seem there should be any room for any music, any extra food, or any extra energy for dancing. And people can say that I'm wrong, that we're a puritanical people, an evangelical people, a selfish people, but I don't believe that. I don't want to believe that. "
― Nickolas Butler , Shotgun Lovesongs
11
" First of all, I want you to think of the city as a collection of people. That's easy, right? You think of Minneapolis or Chicago or Milwaukee, you think of hundreds of thousands of people. Millions of people. That's what you think of right away. Maybe you think of sky-scrapers too, I don't know. But I think of people. The next thing you should think about is ideas. Think of each of those millions of people as a set of ideas. Like, That woman is a ballerina, she thinks about ballet. Or, that man is an architect, he thinks about buildings. If you begin thinking about it that way, a city is the greatest place in the world. It's millions of people, brushing up against one another, exchanging ideas, all the time, at every hour of the day. "
― Nickolas Butler , Shotgun Lovesongs
13
" Sing like you've got no audience, sing like you don't know what a critic is, sing about your hometown, sing about your prom, sing about deer, sing about the seasons, sing about your mother, sing about chainsaws, sing about the thaw, sing about the rivers, sing about forests, sing about the prairies. But whatever you do, start singing early in the morning, if only just to keep warm. And if you happen to live in a warm beautiful place …
Move to Wisconsin. Buy a wood stove, and spend a week splitting wood. It worked for me. "
― Nickolas Butler , Shotgun Lovesongs
17
" It’s all been worth it. Every fight, all those years of childish experimentation, the occasional heartbreak, the paltry checking account, the used, old trucks. To have lived with another human being, another person, this man, as long as I have, and to see him change and grow. To see him become more decent and more patient, stronger and more competent—to see how he loves our children—how he wrestles with them on the floor and kisses them unabashedly in public. To hear his voice in the evening, reading books to them, or explaining to them what his father was like while he was alive, or what I was like as a girl, a teenager, a young woman. To hear him explain why our part of the world is so special. "
― Nickolas Butler , Shotgun Lovesongs
