8 Quotes by M.H. Herlong

I wished we had milk – milk for strong bones. Dylan said he would eat the fish bones if I would quit talking about milk.

The present doesn’t change the past. Is the fact that the past happened enough to make the present good? Is the past real? Was it real anymore?

Usually when you’re steering a boat, it’s like steering a car – you aim yourself in the right direction and move the tiller a little this way or that way on keep on course. Occasionally a stronger puff of wind or a sudden wave pushes you off – like a bump in the road or a car that swings too far into your lane. But you correct. You get back on course. And you start again with the little movements. It’s easy. Anyone can do it.

So we cooked the flounder and ate every single bite. It was huge, and we were stuffed. It was worse than Thanksgiving. I mean it was better.

I thought that it was possible at a time like that to cry. There was a switch inside somewhere, and a person could just decide to flip it and start crying. Maybe it looked and felt like the toggle switch on the engine. Silver and smooth. One direction was on; the other direction was off. Easy to flip. You do it without looking. Up – you’re happy and strong. Down – you’re crying and weak.

When you’ve been on a boat for a while, its sounds gets to be like the sound of your own heartbeat. It’s always there, constant, steady, until after a while you don’t hear it anymore. Then something changes. The speed, or the rhythm, or the tune. Suddenly the sound rings in your ears.

Sometimes when you read a book or watch a TV show, you see the people and you think, Don’t do that. Don’t open that door. Don’t answer that phone. You know everything is about to change. “Stop!” you want to say. “Rewrite the story. Rewind the tape. Don’t let it happen that way.” But you can’t. The people always open the door or answer the phone. The bad thing always happens, and there is nothing you can do about it.

I was letting myself come back to life and it wasn’t good.