Tiffany McDaniel Quotes

I look back and think of all the ways he wasn't the devil in that moment. The devil would break a dog's neck, not cradle it in his own. The devil would have a mouth comparable to a crate of knives, not a mouth with teeth that held the curves of marshmallows. I think of all the devils I've seen in my long life. I know now how brief the innocent, how permanent the wicked. I

And not one of you is to use the N-word that horrid woman said tonight to Sal. I swear I wish people were forced to make a list of names and recite them every time they use that word. "A list of the names of every black man, woman, and child hated,beaten, killed for the color of their flesh. It should be law - by God, it should be law - that if you say that word, you must then say their names. "No one wants to say one word and then realize it means so many more.

I tried to count my moles once. The same flat ones she had and which she called chocolate chips. When I was a real small kid, I actuallly believed the moles were chocolate chips and that if she stood too close to the oven, they'd melt away, so I'd tug on her apron strings and she'd laugh as I led her from the heat.

If the devil was going to come, I expected to see the myth of him. A demon with an asphalt shine. He'd be fury. A chill. A bad cough. Cujo at the car window, a ticket at the Creepshow booth, a leap into the depth of night.

Sometimes the things we believe we hear are really just our own shifting needs.

Pain is our most intimate encounter. It lives on the very inside of us, touching everything that makes us. It claims your bones, it masters your muscles, it reels in your strength, and you never see it again. The artistry of pain is its content. The horror of it is the same.

I'm the devil. No one tells me when to stay and when to leave. But it sure is nice to be wanted. I tell you, Fielding, it sure is nice to be wanted in this very place.

Don't you wanna be a great baseball player?" He sighed back into the wall. "I want to be a great man, Fielding." And so we stand, proved of our existence by those who see us. And how did I see Grand, how did any of us, but as the one who would be great at this and that, as long as it was baseball and girls. He always had to be what we wanted him to be first. He existed only by proxy to our dreams of him.

Sometimes this world is like red fences in the snow. There ain't no hiding who we really are.

You can imagine anything you want in the dark. You can imagine your father loves you, you can imagine your mother is not disappointed, you can imagine that you are...significant. That you mean somethin' to someone. That's all I ever wanted, Fielding. To matter. That is all I've ever wanted.

You know, Fielding, the thing about breaking something that no one much thinks about is that more shadows are created. The bowl when intact was one shadow. One single shadow. Now each piece will have a shadow of its own. My God, so many shadows have been made. Small little slivers of darkness that seem at once to be larger than the bowl ever was. That's the problem of broken things. The light dies in small ways, and the shadows- well, they always win big in the end.

If looks were to be believed, he still was just a boy. Something of my age, though from his solemn quietude, I knew he was old in the soul. A boy whose black crayon would be the shortest in his box.

Being the devil made him important. Made him visible. And isn't that the biggest tragedy of all? When a boy has to be the devil in order to be significant?

It would do none of us any good, runnin' an evil off like we're too weak and too scared to take care of our own problems. As if we zero in bravery and sword. We can't forget, we are the lords of our own 'round here, and we alone hiss back the serpent.

The snake has had its victories over me. And in its victories I am no longer sweet nor gentle.

No one ever said you've got to prepare to be hated. You've got to prepare for the yelling and the anger. You have got to prepare how to survive being the guilty one, even in innocence.

That is the tragedy of losing an older brother. He stays still. You keep on and one day become the older one. It's unnatural, that reversal. It's the thing that keeps the family from ever being whole again.

A snake that could harm you, you don't have much choice to kill. You wouldn't be able to leave a cobra in your sock drawer. But a snake that is no threat will greatly define the man who decides to kill it anyways.

The heat came with the devil. It was the summer of 1984, and while the devil had been invited, the heat had not. It should've been expected, though. Heat is, after all, the devil's name, and when's the last time you left home without yours?

What did I say in that one word of six letters, sometimes only three? I supposed I said, I don't want you to be gay. I don't want you to be happy, and no it isn't fine that you want to be with a man. Faggot. Isn't that what that one word is supposed to mean? Faggot? One word that said I was scared. That I didn't understand.

A foolish mistake, it is, to expect the beast, because sometimes, sometimes, it is the flower's turn to own the name.

I once heard someone refer to Breathed as the scar of the paradise we lost. So it was in many ways, a place with a perfect wound just below the surface.