49 Quotes by Erika Swyler

It's brutal to realize that someone might find a life with you in it unbearable.

Judy Resnik was Jewish, and Nedda didn't believe in Heaven or Hell. If her dad was right, people who died were just thoughts traveling like light, continuing. It was sad, but not. Being sure about things, like Denny was, seemed easier.

She'd started swimming early in the morning, when the kids were asleep, when she thought he was asleep. She didn't know her absence woke him, that the shift in the bed was an earthquake. When she climbed back in, she smelled like salt and seaweed. Sometimes her hair would still be knotted on top of her head. She tried to keep it dry. She didn't want him to know. The problem with marrying the mermaid girl from the carnival was knowing that one day she'd swim away.

Sometimes you made love to a man because you wanted your body to feel something other than the aches and pains of use. Sometimes you made love to man because he looked so good that you wanted to try him on. Sometimes you made love to a man because he fathered your children, he made you a home, he loved you, and he staunched the parts of you that were always bleeding. Sometimes you made love to a man because you felt split in two, and joining with him pulled you back together.

She'd been taught that fear was worry that something bad would happen to you. It wasn't. Fear was something horrible happening to someone you love, someone you need, and you being left alone.

Books have a way of causing ripples.

Silence is its own kind of tension.

She'd wanted that, a grandfather. Someone who would stay. Michel had an eyetooth that turned sideways and she loved it more than anything else in the world. But someone wasn't yours because you loved a tooth.

Why the hell don't people understand there are some things you don't talk about? You keep it to yourself so you hurt fewer people. You're supposed to pay with guilt. Guilt is penance.