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101 " That fucking crow-bodied thing had won. How gleeful it was now. All because he'd wanted to live, forget genius and destiny, and simply be happy. And it wouldn't let him. "
― Janet Fitch , Paint it Black
102 " Death like a lover, caressing him, promising him peace, running its fingers through his hair, its tongue in his ear. "
103 " She was tired, her nerves stripped like wires, the red and white. She felt like a saint with the arrows shit through, she was bleeding to death. "
104 " She was a woman for whom a man would buy a diamond ring or a new car, just to cheer her up. "
105 " He'd known where he was going to end up. The pyre was just a fantasy. Whatever he did, he couldn't have escaped this rectangular hole in the ground, this pile of dirt covered by its blanket of Astroturf. If she'd married him, she would be buried in there, and if they'd had a baby, their child too. There was some ming for you. There was some fucking destiny. "
106 " But she understood, even lies could be true, if you knew how to listen. "
107 " his hands, shedding actual tears. The silky cold dirt and sharp pebbles of the road "
108 " If you didn't have anything truly great to offer, something truly amazing, then you should just shut the fuck up. "
109 " She couldn't help but think how Michael would have loved this old man. He loved when people talked to him like this, just regular people. It made him feel human, connected, if someone was comfortable talking to him, saw him as an ordinary man, perhaps he wasn't as estranged from the world as he felt himself to be. "
110 " It's a rotten deal, the house always wins. Just sit at the table and play for all you're worth. "
111 " Other boys were happy enough to enjoy the show, they just wanted to be entertained in the body's shadow theater. "
112 " Once the worst had happened to you, all the rest was just stuff and absence. "
113 " Four was difficult and misunderstood, a genius before its time, it belonged to the planet of unexpected disaster. "
114 " That was how you did it. You let go, you left all that behind, you refused to remember. You let the dark in. "
115 " It didn't much matter where the path went, she wasn't the least bit curious, she just needed a direction. "
116 " What isn't there is as important as what is, Phil always said. "
117 " Especially the first one I thought it explained their relationship. At several points at the beginning of the story I wondered how Fitch was going to make the story last about a dead boyfriend. I think parts like that and more further into the story explained how Josie felt and why she was devastated. The one about girls knowing the destructive power of truth is spot on. hehe "
118 " Just like life. Each person was like one line of music, but nobody knew what the symphony sounded like. Only the conductor had the whole score. "
119 " The Fool, the Zero card, dressed in motley, dazzled face to the sky, foot about to come off the cliff. Pierrot. It wasn't Michael at all. It was her. You fool...And which one was he? The Magician? She'd thought he was. She'd thought he had it all lined up. The world spinning on his little finger. Or else the Hermit with his lantern, looking for the true world. But no, here he was. The twelfth card. The Hanged Man. Lashed upside down to his cross tree. Unable to go backward or forward "
120 " But she was sure old Henry'd showed up with the other granola-heads, lit incense and rang finger cymbals and blew some pot, no doubt, in John's memory. Om rama rama. Did John Lennon really want all that? Was that what he was about? From what she'd heard, the guy'd had some wit and brains - did he really want to be the dead guy of the hour, like a melting centerpiece? "