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Kathy Hepinstall QUOTES

Kathy Hepinstall QUOTES

1 " They had engaged in what could not be called treatment or even discussion, but open combat, the two of them a microcosm of the great war raging in the far distance: one side that desired autonomy, and the other that took independence as a sign of madness. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , Blue Asylum

2 " Instead he felt only love. And that was the miracle. The surge in hatred since the war began had created more love around it. It was indomitable, mad, and everlasting, scattered through the rich and the poor, deep and calm in the Quakers, hot and fierce in the mothers, faithful in the warriors, wistful in the pets, seeping its way into mercy and atrocity, destroying things, rebuilding them. "

― Kathy Hepinstall

3 " I wanted someone above me in the chain of life. I didn't want to be alone, a single blue egg in a crumbling nest. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , The Book of Polly

4 " You should have tried the eggplant parmesan she tried to hoist on me at the church bake sale. No wonder her children turned to Satan. He probably showed up as an angel of light and promised them a decent meal. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , The Book of Polly

5 " [That] was the cruelty of fate, whether you were dying at sea or simply trying to get through high school. Sometimes fate kissed you. Sometimes it snubbed you. Sometimes it passed you a love note, and that note was a lie. "

― Kathy Hepinstall

6 " Her childhood had been magical, hours spent in ecstatic loneliness in the apple orchard, dreaming of foreign lands and wild adventures. Everything was new, down to bird song and grass blades. By the time she had reached adulthood, the town around her was like a grandmother who had used up all her stories and now simply rocked on the porch. The same flowers, the same streets, year after year. She longed for someone more exotic. A prince. A pirate. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , Blue Asylum

7 " Those who wake at this hour feel a lonely separation from everyone but night birds and ghost crabs, never imagining the legion of kindred souls scattered in the darkness, who stare at ceilings and pace floors and look out windows and covet and worry and mourn. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , Blue Asylum

8 " Every father wants a daughter to meet the right God, and the right man. Perhaps her father had failed with both. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , Blue Asylum

9 " Easy for you to say," Polly said. "You've lived here all your life and stayed under the radar. No one points at you."
"Sometimes small children point at my butt," Aunt Rhea said. "But that's just on account of all the fried chicken. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , The Book of Polly

10 " I see the way you look at him, and he looks at you. Don't question love, Iris. It may have come to you in an inconvenient form, one that society finds scandalous, but it's a gift from God. A reminder that this institution can't interfere with natural processes, like laughter, prayer, a dream that comes to you in sleep. Or love. Do with it what you want, but know it means God still sees you not as a lunatic but as His child. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , Blue Asylum

11 " The world was cruel and sudden. This he knew for sure. Relax for a moment, breathe in the scent of a rose, rest in the shade, pet a dog, take a sip of lemonade, fall in love with a dreamy-eyed girl or a haunted faced man, and you are just waiting for the other shoe to drop. Buzzing around the lemonade, you'll find flies. Follow the flies and you'll find death. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , Blue Asylum

12 " That's what war was. A great motion and then a great stillness in which the winner crouches and the loser lies facing the sky. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , Blue Asylum

13 " Jesus isn't gonna help me with a teenager, Lisa. He was good with lepers and whores and blind people, but he can't cure the smart ass years and you know it. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , The Book of Polly

14 " It's not my fault that the gray of everyone else's stories makes the color stand out. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , The Book of Polly

15 " All men have a little badness in them,' she whispered.
Milo looked at her. 'Sometimes, honey... a woman can be just as evil as a man. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , The House of Gentle Men

16 " Don't question love, Iris. It may come to you in an inconvenient form, one that society finds scandalous, but its a gift from God. A reminder that this institution can't interfere with natural processes, like laughter, prayer, a dream that comes to you in sleep. Or love. Do with it what you want, but know that it means God still sees you not as a lunatic but as His child. "

― Kathy Hepinstall

17 " You [Polly] and your neighbor Mr. Tornello hate each other. You once paid a little girl to knock on his door and ask to borrow a cup of dumbass. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , The Book of Polly

18 " Grief, he thought, would have an ending, but it was a black cat that ran across life, through good conversations and orange firelight and endless drills. It sat on his shoulders and made his knees creek when he stood up. It balanced in the crook of his arm as he cleaned his rifle. And he could not banish it; it was loyal as a dog. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , Sisters of Shiloh

19 " Scandal was an antihistamine. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , The Book of Polly

20 " The soul is nothing but the innards of the finest watch, ruined before the watchmaker’s hands even touch it, by its exposure to air. "

― Kathy Hepinstall , Blue Asylum