17 Quotes by Nathan Ballingrud

Balance eases the heart.

Read more slowly and more deeply; the number of books you finish in a year is meaningless. Read what speaks to your heart and let no one tell you what that is; only you know. Reading isn’t a chore or a duty. It’s holy. It makes pain bearable and it provides company in the dark.

Something big was trapped inside him, some great sadness, and he felt if he could cry, or even articulate it in speech, it would relieve the pressure and provide him some measure of relief. But he couldn't reach it. He couldn't find a way to address it. He wondered if it would become the thing that defined him.

The roaches were in high spirits. There were half a dozen of them, caught in the teeth of love. They capered across the liquor bottles, perched atop pour spouts like wooden ladies on the prows of sailing ships. They lifted their wings and delicately fluttered. They swung their antennae with a ripe sexual urgency, tracing love sonnets in the air.

She learned that there was an animal living inside her, something that celebrated when nature did its work upon the weak. She came to value that animal.

She didn’t want to hear his story. Everybody had one. Tragedy gets boring after a while.

A ghost is something that fills a hole inside you, where you lost something. It's a memory. Sometimes it can be painful, and sometimes it can be scary. Sometimes it's hard to tell where the ghost ends and real life begins.

Life so far seemed like a kind of dance to him, and he was pleased to discover that he was pretty good at it. Lf there was something hollow underneath it all, a well of fear that sometimes seemed to pull everything else into it and leave him clutching the stone rim for fear of falling into himself, well, that was part of being human, he supposed. That's what the booze was for.

He imagined the room bathed in blood, himself striding through it, a raven amongst the carcasses. Strutting like any carrion king.