Elizabeth Wetmore Quotes

Look in any ravine within fifty miles of the border, Victor could tell his niece, in any small wash or depression, look under any skinny mesquite that might bring some small relief from the hot sun, and you will find us there. You could build a house with the skeletons of our ancestors, a cathedral from our bones and skulls.

In the church where I grew up, we were taught that sin, even if it happens only in your heart, condemns you all the same. Grace is not assured to any of us, maybe not even most of us, and while being saved gives you a fighting chance, you must always hope that the sin lodged in your heart, like a bullet that cannot be removed without killing you, is not of the mortal kind.

Every book has at least one good thing…Love stories and bad news and evil masterminds, plots as thick as sludge, places and people she wishes she could know in real life, and words whose loveliness and music make her want to cry when she says them aloud.

Glory looks at the two small scars on her hands, one in the center of each palm, the body doing its work. [...] The girl who stood up and fell back down, who grabbed onto a barbed wire fence and stopped herself from falling again. The girl who walked barefoot across the desert and saved her own life. She can't imagine any other way to tell the story.

Yeah. What do you need, Corrine, to be happy with me and Alice?

She doesn't hesitate. I need to go back to my work, Potter.

Honey, you work, taking care of Alice and me.

Yes, I do. I'd prefer to teach English to a classroom full of hormonal rednecks.

Glory opens her mouths, closes it. She shakes her head and looks at her cigarette. I was attacked by a man out in the oil patch.
God damn it all, Tina says, and after a long pause, I'm sorry.
I got in his truck and went with him.
Well hell, sugar, Tina says. That don't mean jack. That evil belongs to him, it's got nothing to do with you.

The only thing I hate more that being home with Alice all day long is feeling guilty about not wanting to do it. Corrine's voice breaks and she pushes her fist against her mouth. She is trying not to cry, and this makes her even angrier.

[...]because I happen to like holding a room full of teenagers hostage while I read Miss Willa Cather's My Antonia out loud to them.