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A Thousand Acres QUOTES

A Thousand Acres QUOTES

1 " Had I faced all the facts It seemed like I had but actually you never know just by remembering how many there were to have faced. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

2 " I was depressed, but that was a side issue. This was more like closing up shop, or, say, having a big garage sale, where you look at everything you've bought in your life, and you remember how much it meant to you, and now you just tag it for a quarter and watch 'em carry it off, and you don't care. That's more like how it was. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

3 " ...I had been with my father so constantly for so long that I knew less and less about him with every passing year. Every meaningful image was jumbled together with the countless moments of our daily life defeating my efforts to gain some perspective. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

4 " She always said, 'When I'm home, I've got to get things done, even if there are visitors. Elizabeth knows how to relax in her own house.' And then she would shake her head, as if Elizabeth had remarkable powers. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

5 " Seeing him somewhere was always a pleasure, like taking a drink of water. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

6 " The fact is that the same sequence of days can arrange themselves into a number of different stories. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

7 " I suspected that there were things he knew that I had been waiting all my life to learn. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

8 " Daddy thinks history starts fresh every day, every minute, that time itself begins with the feelings he’s having right now. That’s how he keeps betraying us, why he roars at us with such conviction. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

9 " Shame is a distinct feeling. I couldn’t look at my hands around the coffee cup or hear my own laments without feeling appalled, wanting desperately to fall silent, grow smaller. More than that, I was uncomfortably conscious of my whole body, from the awkward way that the shafts of my hair were thrusting out of my scalp to my feet, which felt dirty as well as cold. Everywhere, I seemed to feel my skin from the inside, as if it now stood away from my flesh, separated by a millimeter of mortified space. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

10 " But even though I felt her presence, I also felt the habitual fruitlessness of thinking about her. Her images, partly memories of her, partly memories of photos I had seen of her, yielded no new answers to old mysteries. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

11 " You know when we came out of the clinic, and we saw those flower beds that we hadn’t seen when we were walking in? That was so unexpected, I think it made me delirious somehow. And then it seemed like if we just threw off all restraints and talked wildly and ate wildly and shopped wildly, it would just turn up the delirium, and make it even better, or permanent somehow... "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

12 " I always feel a little guilty when I break bad news to someone, because that energy, of knowing something others don’t, sort of puffs you up. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

13 " We’re not going to be sad. We’re going to be angry until we die. It’s the only hope. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

14 " I always think that things have to happen the way they do happen, that there are so many inner and outer forces joining at every event that it becomes a kind of fate. I learned from studying Buddhism that there’s beauty, and certainly a lot of peace, in accepting that.” I sniffed. A smile twinkled sheepishly across his face. “Okay, okay,” he said, “how about this? If you worry about it, you draw it to you. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

15 " When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I agreed in order to be polite, but in my heart I knew that those men were impostors, as farmers and as fathers, too. In my youthful estimation, Laurence Cook defined both categories. To really believe that others even existed in either category was to break the First Commandment. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

16 " what it feels like to resist without seeming to resist, to absent yourself while seeming respectful and attentive. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

17 " She dressed to look good, and I dressed for obscurity. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

18 " We came to the corner, waited for the light, and crossed. I had no idea where we were going. I said, “I didn’t realize you were so depressed.” “I was depressed, but that was a side issue. This was more like closing up shop, or, say, having a big garage sale, where you look at everything you’ve bought in your life, and you remember how much it meant to you, and now you just tag it for a quarter and watch ’em all carry it off, and you don’t care. That’s more like how it was. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

19 " I had a burden lift off me that I hadn't even felt the heaviness of until then, and it was the burden of having to wait and see what was going to happen. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres

20 " They throw themselves on the waters of the world, and they know they will be borne up. "

― Jane Smiley , A Thousand Acres