33 Quotes by Joshua Gaylord

It was a holy night. I ran. My father slept soundly in his bed, somewhere far behind me, and I ran. Elsewhere in the world masses were being performed and stock was being taken of the glories and retreats of life – and it was nothing to me, because I ran. I was naked in the woods. It was a beautiful outrage.

A big bubble. A block wide. It goes where you go – you’re the center of it. And every object gets a little bit better while it’s in that bubble with you. It’s always very bright where you are.

It would be different now, I thought. His colleagues, they would not know what to say to me now that I had grown into a young woman. People fear those curious interstitial creatures who are neither children nor adults.

We all have stories to tell. Our demons are sunk deep under our skin, and maybe we use stories to exorcise them – or at least know them truly.

I thought it must be difficult for him, for boys. They get temperamental when they can’t shape the world into what they want it to be. It’s easier for girls. Girls are raised knowing that the world is unshapable. So they know better than to fuss.

I had started running in order to escape Rose Lincoln and her pack. Then I was running to put things decidedly being me, to seek lovely new emptinesses. Then I ran to outpace the nagging of my ticklish brain. Then I just ran.