8 Quotes by Chris Offutt

The secret is to start a story near the ending.

The tree line was gone and hilltops blended with the black tapestry of night. It was country dark. He closed his eyes, feeling safe.

There are times in people’s lives when a significant event occurs and they’re not aware of it – the last time you pick up a son before he’s too heavy, the final kiss of a marriage gone bad, the view of a beloved landscape you’ll never see again. Weeks later, I realized those were Dad’s last words to me.

I’d never really found a place in the outside world, but had stayed away too long to fit in at home.

I don’t miss my father, but without his shackles to strain against, the world is terrifying and vast. I have lost a kind of purpose, a reason to prove myself.

Sometimes I don’t think I’ve done anything to leave my mark in this world. I’m the kind of person the world leaves a mark on.

Time piles up like brush. You burn it in the fall and all you remember are the glowing cinders. I got ash heaps everywhere I look. -Old of the Moon.

Her chest felt like a shaken snow globe.