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Virgil Wander QUOTES

Virgil Wander QUOTES

1 " Memory’s oldest trick is convincing us of its accuracy. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

2 " A person never knows what is next--I don't anyway. The surface of everything is thinner than we know. A person can fall right through, without any warning at all. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

3 " He had the heartening bulk of the aging athlete defeated by pastry "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

4 " This was maybe best of all. I never once expected to be someone's nice surprise. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

5 " What makes a Samaritan good is the possibility of the lunge. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

6 " I loved that kite, that cinnamon hound. We were old friends. I had soared and laughed with that kite. It got me out on the perimeter. I felt I had failed it somehow, and rune too, even though he would've offered the string to Leer, just as I had. Thinking it over I became a bit less angry, and more proud of the kite itself: it had refused to be flown by Leer one moment longer. It broke the line and caught the next gust out of town. A perilous beautiful move, choosing to throw yourself at the future, even if it means one day coming down in the sea. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

7 " They came one at a time or in shy small groups. I remember when sea-kindly showed up, a sentimental favorite, followed by desiccated and massive. Brusque appeared all by itself, which seemed apt; merry and boisterous arrived together. This would be a good time to ask for your patience if I use an adjective too many now and again—even now, some years on, they’re still returning. I’m just so glad to see them. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

8 " He had a hundred merry crinkles at his eyes and a long-haul sadness in his shoulders. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

9 " My weary old ground was broken and watered, and what sprang up was a generalized longing. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

10 " The evidence of my life lay before me, and I was unconvinced. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

11 " I experienced an unspooling sense of freedom—genuine antagonism is something I’ve rarely encountered, and it felt good to respond with honesty instead of obsequious scraping. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

12 " Although saying this, I realize it may have been illusory. Memory’s oldest trick is convincing us of its accuracy. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

13 " Avoiding my eyes he said a rumor had started that I didn’t make it, that I died in the lake, so he drove out to where it happened and sure enough someone had hung a twist of flowers on the torn fence. Carnations and baby’s breath. There was a white plastic cross and a laminated photo saying, “Virgil Wander RIP.” While he poked around, a little scorched-haired lady arrived in a Chevy pickup and marched to the brink with a rosary. When Tom revealed I was alive she wrapped it around her fist in annoyance and sped off dragging a veil of smoke. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

14 " It’s possible to perceive what is coming and still be dumbfounded when it happens. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

15 " Oh, his speed was no shock—speed was never Alec’s problem. It was his precision that astonished. Because listen: How many pitchers in any league have a fastball with its own nickname? And what kind of fastball earns the name Mad Mouse? I will tell you: the kind that twists in crackling without one notion where it’s going. The kind you don’t see but hear hissing to itself like the bottle rocket before the bang. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

16 " A person never knows what is next—I don’t, anyway. The surface of everything is thinner than we know. A person can fall right through, without any warning at all. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

17 " I made a fist and held it out. It didn't look like much—not like a fist anyone would count on for protection. If war came seeking a person I loved, that undernourished fist was not going to be enough. I would have to put my whole body in the way "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

18 " There is no better sound than whom you adore when they are sleepy and pleased "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

19 " The surface of everything is thinner than we know. A person can fall right through, without any warning at all. "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander

20 " I wouldn’t say that. Shad’s a good man. Better than most of us, maybe. But he’s …” I shut my eyes, looked for adjectives, and could come up only with “not reliable,” a choice I instantly regretted. Shad had plowed snow twenty years, in dangerous weather, for embarrassing pay. Reliable is exactly what he was. Yet it was also true he had a headful of spiders which woke now and then and altered his personal scenery. Somehow I’d managed to disappoint one friend and rat on another at once. “Don’t "

― Leif Enger , Virgil Wander