“Marcel was from Louisiana, so for four years Emily had been southern by association. She insisted on Lynchburg Lemonades. She scheduled interviews around the Gators. She championed gentility. Anyone at a dinner party who thought they could tell a joke… — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share Image
“Once in a while, I smell Clive on my skin and it stops my day. It's a train crossing; I wait to pass. Eventually the lights stop flashing, the barriers lift. I keep moving.” — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share Image
“That can be the cruelest part of happiness--its tendency to disguise itself as boredom.” — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“When you're alone, you are in the right place to watch sadness approach like storm clouds over an open field. You can sit in… — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“Her father is fastened to his room, with his records and his drugs and his quiet. She crawls under her covers. It is her… — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“Marcel was from Louisiana, so for four years Emily had been southern by association. She insisted on Lynchburg Lemonades. She scheduled interviews around the… — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“Gus doesn’t belong in this world. He was born with a Hollywood chin, a butter touch, and an ear that can hear rhythms tapped… — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“In the jaundiced light of a streetlamp, Sarina realizes why people have children: to see the face of the one they love at the… — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“Hobbies are a way of staying present so humans do not have to think about death.” — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“We carry our ancestors in our names and sometimes we carry our ancestors through the sliding doors of emergency rooms and either way they… — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“But Madeline loves her father and how can you be scared of someone you love?” — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“Tonight, the Sisters of Saint Joseph and I are going to The Slaughterhouse Bar. I have four rolls of quarters and we are going… — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“I am quitting a boy like some people quit smoking. I am not quitting smoking.” — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“We stand at the doors and look out over the yard. Hundreds of deer gaze back at us. Deer and deer and deer and… — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
“Bob Dylan never has his own cigarettes. I thought this was charming at first.” — Marie-Helene Bertino Copy Share
