17 Quotes by Stephen Markley

New Canaan had this look, like a magazine after it’s tossed on the fire, the way the pages blacken and curl as they begin to burn, but just before the flames take over.

You make someone your devil for long enough, and you want to hold onto that. There's something rapturous about hating another person, especially if you have a goddamned good reason.

It's a strange feeling: to be ashamed and embarrassed of who you used to be. Even with the excuses of youth, inexperience, and influence- her church, her parents, her older brothers, her friends, almost everyone she knew- it still made her deeply uncomfortable to think of herself back then, who she might have hurt without knowing it.

The problem with driving around Iceland is that you’re basically confronted by a new soul-enriching, breath-taking, life-affirming natural sight every five goddamn minutes. It’s totally exhausting.

I tell you this story only to try to explain to you that the world you see today and the world you will see at the upper span of your long lifetimes – well – it will amaze you. The changes you will experience, the chances you will have to shape those changes – I just cannot stress how astonishing and astounding and joyful an opportunity it will be.

How quickly contempt can dissipate when faced with the pathetic humanness of another person. You see inside them for even the briefest moment and suddenly empathy blows through. A dark sky cleared by a hard rain.

Dad slugged back the Rolling Rock. He used to only drink Budweiser until those commercials with the frogs came out. He’d said, “Welp. Can’t drink moron beer,” finished the rest of his Budweiser that night and, as far as Dan knew, had yet to touch another.

Thirteen years old, he walked around for weeks thinking of those words, feeling the way you do when you’re outside with your friends and it starts to rain, but you’re too far from home to run for it. So you just get soaked and marvel at why you don’t do such a thing all the time.

The house sat at the end of the street, forlorn, the lawn browning, a testament to how the world never works out the way you think it will, let alone the way you want it to.