76 Quotes by Edward Hoagland

He couldn't work, as such, but needed to flex himself somehow in ways that felt like work, he thought. Lacking credentials and sight he could not teach, for example. Even reading a cold-call script would be out, although he'd heard of a resourceful blind man who went to the social security office and suggested, "Give me either a job or just my damned check," and received the former, skillfully handling mediation assignments.

Men were so violent, she complained. Why were men so violent? You had to be careful as a woman. You could get somebody's nose broken if you griped that they had pinched you or even looked at you funny. And of course that wasn't what you wanted; you just wanted to be left alone. Also, you knew that the mean son of a bitch that broke the poor jerk's nose was just getting his rocks off--didn't care about you personally.

As a customer's man, his best brokerage work was securing the old age of his clients: time for them to do what they wished.

I'd like a break. I'm forty-six, so the undertow is beginning to get to me.""Then what are you good for?" she asked, in a kind tone."Oh, a man around the house has his uses. A dildo; an ear to talk to; two arms around you; a voice from the next room when you're lonesome.""I have a dog to talk to.""That might be a deal killer.

Hard-bitten had a double meaning: bitten hard by life, like her, or clamping meanly down on other people. But, as though belying his thoughts, she said, "I hope your days are good.""If only. My eyes, you know, are like Swiss cheese, the doctor says. I see through the holes.

Once I climbed into a mountain lion's cage and she bounded at me and put her paw on my face, but she kept her claws withdrawn.

In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.

Country people do not behave as if they think life is short; they live on the principle that it is long, and savor variations of the kind best appreciated if most days are the same.

Many people have believed that they were Chosen, but none more baldly than the Texans.