170 Quotes by Catherine Lacey

That's the thing about fiction, that you live in it totally for a little while, but you must forget it, sometimes totally forget it, in order to go about the rest of your day.

This wasn't a commodifiable realization, the kind of thing in college essays or inspirational books or the hardbound journals of gentle ladies. There was no ah, no ha, no relaxation or humor folded into this realization. There was just something real in my head—a rescue boat in a sea where there was no one left to save.

Every few minutes or so I would remember the look from the man who had wanted fifty cents, and I'd look at that framed memory hanging in myself and it meant I was here, back in this sick city, but in other ways I was not here at all and anyone who looked closely could see that I had nothing to give, that I was a junk drawer, a collection of things that may or may not have had a use.

It depressed me to think that I might have been looking at another person but seeing only myself.

I tried to pick the burned ones from the bowl but I didn't get many of them because I didn't make much of an effort, and even though I was taking the burned ones out because they weren't edible, I ate them because, at the moment, I thought it would be better if everyone learned to consume their own mistakes.

People in large quantities are terrible.

It was grotesque and eerie, too strange of a dream.

And he'd said nothing or something that amounted to nothing, and I tongued this memory like a burn in my mouth until the bathwater cooled and shook me back into my body where my fingerprints were ruffled.

...no moment cares, and the ones you wish could stretch out like a hammock for you to lie in, well, those moments leave the quickest and take everything good with them, little burglars, those moments, those hours, those days you loved the most.