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21 " They say that doing ten sums a day prevents you from becoming senile. But by that argument bankers should be geniuses. That's not right. Thickest heads in the world. "
― Annie Proulx , The Shipping News
22 " And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery. "
23 " Everybody that went away suffered a broken heart. "I'm coming back some day," they all wrote. But never did. The old life was too small to fit anymore. "
24 " We're all strange inside. We learn how to disguise our differences as we grow up. "
25 " A spinning coin, still balanced on its rim, may fall in either direction. "
26 " At least he could turn on the shower, stand beneath the hot needles, face thrust near the spray head, feeling the headache move back a little. "
27 " It's like you feel to yourself that's all you deserve. And the worse it gets the more it seems true, that you got it coming to you or it wouldn't be that way. "
28 " ... where she could hear the creaking sounds of his breathing, the thump of his heart, gurgling and squeals from his stomach. "
29 " I'm not actually planning anything. A certain period of drifting is in order. "
30 " When Quoyle leaned forward the twin spears of the headache threatened to dislodge his eyes. "
31 " His cheek pillows pushed up by a thin, slanting smile, a fine channel like a scar from nose to upper lip. "
32 " His cheek pillows pushed up by a thing, slanting smile, a fine channel like a scar from nose to upper lip. "
33 " ... Most often it was Mrs. Moosup doing overtime in a trance of electronic color and simulated life, smoking cigarettes and not wondering. "
34 " He'd call him up that night. Tell him. What? That he could gut a cod while he talked about advertising space and printing costs? That he was wondering if love came in other colors than the basic black of none and the red heat of obsession? "
35 " Hadn't she guessed there was a nick in the edge of that axe? The way Quoyle talked of his love, but never the woman? "
36 " The fog tore apart, light charged the sea like blue neon. "
37 " The armor of indifference in which he protected his marriage was frail... the newspaper rustling with each heave of his chest, tears running down into his ears. "
38 " Guessing at the dead man too late. "
39 " The water is a dark flower and a fisherman is a bee in the heart of her. "
40 " We don't make the decisions, just does what we're told where and when we're told. We lives by rules made somewhere else by sons a bitches don't know nothin' about this place.' A hard exhalation rather than a sigh.But, Quoyle thought, that's how it was everywhere. Jack was lucky he'd escaped so long. "