9 Quotes by Howard Bahr

Anna thought about the men outside on the gallery. She was glad they were there; finding them smoking and talking quietly had been comforting, it was what men did in the evenings when the work was done. Of course, the work was not done, and she doubted that it ever would be. It would go on and on, even after the house was emptied of strangers, long after the wildflowers had blossomed a hundred times on their graves.

The fog was made more beautiful by its passing, like flags in the spring; like the last drone of cicadas in a dying summer; like the brief yellow of hickories, the purple of sweetgums, in the fall. You loved most the things that passed away, that you couldn't hold on to, no matter how much you loved them.

He was already tired of the rain. He never took long to grow weary of it in winter, though he liked it in the summertime when it fell hard, silver and green, and afterward steamed from the backs of horses, steamed up from the railroad ties and lay in a mist along Town Creek. In summer, the birds sang after a rain, but no such music rose from the cold drizzle of the dead time. Only silence, and only the dark.

They had three cadences, these spectral drummers, which they called First Kings, Second Kings, and Revelations. Going into a fight, they went from one cadence to another with no apparent signal until the officers began to shout commands and men began to fall. Then the drummers began a solemn drill beat that Bushrod believed would be the muttering undertone of every nightmare he would ever have.

The dawn that Anna feared might never come would appear on schedule, just as it always had - and after it another, and another. And yesterday would become Last Month, then Last Winter, then Last Year, then Two and Five and Ten Years Ago, and one day the people would have to stop and think before they could say how long ago it was ...

Maybe that's what the night is for, just so's we can know the difference when the light comes again.

The dawn that Anna feared might never come would appear on schedule, just as it always had – and after it another, and another. And yesterday would become Last Month, then Last Winter, then Last Year, then Two and Five and Ten Years Ago, and one day the people would have to stop and think before they could say how long ago it was...

When a man was alone too much, he had only himself to look into, and what he found there was all manner of darkness.

The fog was made more beautiful by its passing, like flags in the spring; like the last drone of cicadas in a dying summer; like the brief yellow of hickories, the purple of sweetgums, in the fall. You loved most the things that passed away, that you couldn’t hold on to, no matter how much you loved them.