12 Quotes by Rufi Thorpe

At root, I seemed to be upset about the existence of physical power at all. That violence is nothing but another kind of touching.

She carried herself like a dishonored queen. Even the way she held her head at an angle as she considered the buildings around us seemed watched and pretentious, and I thought about my mother saying there was something toxic about being very beautiful. It must be terrible to be a woman.

Sure, and fatherhood is super important too. I'm not trying to make this a women-only club by any means. Just that even men rarely view their role in child rearing as the most important thing they do, when in fact it is clearly the most important thing that anybody does.

Whatever it is that hurts you, don't talk to anyone about it.

What had been so funny? But you can never remember what you were laughing about, and even if you could, it seems doubtful that it would still be funny.

It wasn't that Lorrie Ann was becoming a Goody Two-shoes. It wasn't that she wanted to be perfect or loved or approved of. No. She wanted something much more dangerous. She wanted meaning. And she thought it could be gotten by following the rules.

How could it be that I wanted those scary narrow streets and books and coffee shops for her so much more than she wanted them for herself?

But sometimes when you are in a moment, it’s so close to your face, reality, it’s pressed up so close to you, that you just flinch, you react, and then your fate is decided, and all you have done was what you couldn’t help doing, and yet your fate is decided. You’ve done something that can’t be taken back.

I finally did sleep for a little while, only it was like the difference between Pringles and actual chips, like someone took sleep and then put it through a horrible industrial machine, made it into a paste, and re-formed it and baked it into a shape that was supposed to look like sleep but was not anything even close.