“The story she then told was as all attempts at sympathy are: an effort to match in form and size and detail what another has known: to hold one experience next to another the way lovers and children match fingers… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“Some vestige of his race or of his sex made him think, whenever he looked out across the ocean: As it was before me… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“If you want to see how far we have not come from the cave and the woods, from the lonely and dangerous days of… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“John Keane pressed his chest to the steering wheel as he put the key in the ignition, taking a deep breath as he did,… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“The fourth contraction seized her and suddenly she was perspiring. She heard herself cry out and then she heard the children’s voices like sparks… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“THE TINY SPIDERS that lived in the higher branches of the downed tree (which now meant the branches that lay on the other side… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
What makes a sentence, a phrase, a moment, or a scene delightful? Something about recognizing the truth in it, hearing the music in it,… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“Michael had slipped beyond the crest of the dune. Jacob was lying flat out now, on his stomach, his little men all before him,… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“Not a soul,” Mary Keane said to her husband, the wind lifting her words, tossing them gently back over her shoulder, the way it… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“There wasn’t a tear to be seen on the faces of the men and women in the street as the two of them walked… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“His love for his children bore down on his heart with the weight of three heavy stones. There were all his unnamed fears for… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“Mr. Persichetti knew that six weeks before its time and with a good thirty-minute ride to the hospital once the ambulance came (would it… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“Mike Shea became a medic during the war and was now married, working for Pfizer. To this day he can’t look at her straight.… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
As a writer, I'm too busy and worried to experience the delight while composing my own work, although, of course, I hope a reader… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
“Why not?” but without conviction, confirming for them both that this was a sudden impulse that most likely would not last out the afternoon.… — Alice McDermott Copy Share Image
