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41 " The first time I didn’t say anything, because she shot me in the mouth. "
― Denis Johnson , Jesus’ Son
42 " If I opened up your head and ran a hot soldering iron around in your brain, I might turn you into someone like that. "
43 " It was there. It was. The long walk down the hall. The door opening. The beautiful stranger. The torn moon mended. Our fingers touching away the tears. It was there. "
44 " Maybe, when you hear the name "Beverly," you think of Beverly Hills--people wandering the streets with their heads shot off by money. "
45 " FH: All these... weirdos, and me... getting a little better every day right in the middle of 'em. I had never known... I had never even imagined for a heartbeat that... there might be a place in the world for people like us...Jesus' Son "
46 " I stayed in the library, crushed breathless by the smoldering power of all those words – many of them unfathomable – until Happy Hour. And then I left. "
47 " She was resting at a table between numbers in the Greek nightclub where she was dancing. A little of the stage light touched her. She was very frail. She seemed to be thinking about something far away, waiting patiently for somebody to destroy her. "
48 " The three of us had formed a group based on something erroneous, some basic misunderstanding that hadn’t yet come to light, and so we kept on in one another’s company, going to bars and having conversations. "
49 " His eyeballs look like he bought them in a joke shop. "
50 " And sometimes a dust storm would stand off in the desert, towering so high it was like another city -- a terrifying new era approaching, blurring our dreams. "
51 " There was nothing of his I wanted in particular. I wanted it all. "
52 " Think of being curled up and floating in a darkness. Even if you could think, even if you had an imagination, would you ever imagine its opposite, this miraculous world the Asian Taoists call the "Ten Thousand Things"? And if the darkness just got darker? And then you were dead? What would you care? How would you even know the difference? "
53 " Not all the people living at Beverly Home were old and helpless. Some were young but paralyzed. Some weren’t past middle age but were already demented. Others were fine, except that they couldn’t be allowed out on the street with their impossible deformities. They made God look like a senseless maniac. One man had a congenital bone ailment that had turned him into a seven-foot-tall monster. His name was Robert. Each day Robert dressed himself in a fine suit, or a blazer-and-trousers combination. His hands were eighteen inches long. His head was like a fifty-pound Brazil nut with a face. You and I don’t know about these diseases until we get them, in which case we also will be put out of sight. "
54 " I pushed through the door into Kelly's. Inside they sat with their fat hands around their beers while the jukebox sang softly to itself. You'd think they'd found out how, by sitting still and holding their necks just so, to look down into lost worlds. "
55 " It was raining. Gigantic ferns leaned over us. The forest drifted down a hill. I could hear a creek rushing down among rocks. And you, you ridiculous people, you expect me to help you. "
56 " What a pair of lungs! "
57 " You can’t burgulate a forgotten, empty house,” he said, horrified at my stupidity. "
58 " The soybean crop was dead again, and the failed, whilted cornstalks were laid out on the ground like rows of underthings. Most of the farmers didn't even plant anymore. All the false visions had been erased. It felt like the moment before the Savior comes. And the Savior did come, but we had to wait a long time. "
59 " What can be said about those fields? There were blackbirds circling above their own shadows, and beneath them the cows stood around smelling one another’s butts. "
60 " The women were blank, shining areas with photographs of sad girls floating in them. "