Quotes from Deb Olin Unferth

You know how it is to want something. Desire builds like a little house in your head and it sits there, half-constructed in your mind. Women who want children are this way. Artists are this way about pictures. It doesn't go away. You may forget for a few months but then it's back, the unfinished pieces of what you want.

Humans, we just hop out of things, off things. We splatter ourselves in inappropriate places. Because we have nothing to live for. Because we want to destroy what we can. Because we want to be something we can't. Because we don't really believe we can die.

It takes bravery to care for someone — no matter who he is or what made him, whether he is weak or walking or jumping out of windows. The risk involved is enormous.

People are fakers--that's all we do. Can you think of anything you do that's not done for the precise reason of pretending to be something you're afraid you're not?

The utterly empty bottle of his soul.

His rage was a saw, going back and forth, cutting through arteries, hers.

had not lived the life of the girl in New York. She had chosen to go to Iowa,

Déjà, il était trop tard. Ils ne savaient bien. L'ennemi avait clairement gagné. Bientôt il ne resterait plus du miracle de la vie sur notre planète que la monoculture des vaches, cochons, chiens et poules maltraités, quelques autres espèces utiles -ainsi que des humains, d'horribles, de répugnants, d'imbattables humains.

Qu'est-ce qu'on a à se laisser écraser par l'ennemi, pendant qu'on se contente de bredouiller poliment qu'on n'est pas d'accord ?

Maybe that's the point: he was just a typical guy in a typical place, and he made choices, and each choice changed him, and each change began to close off other possibilities, seal shut other rooms, exclude other people he might become, one by one, until he could no longer be anything but what he was.

Si le cerveau des mammifères a évolué selon une certaine voie, celui des oiseaux en a suivi une autre . Progression dynamique plutôt que stagnation reptilienne. Au lieu de se déployer à la surface en gros plis grumeleux comme chez les mammifères, leur intelligence est enfouie dans le cortex. Comment voler avec une grosse tête ? Leur cerveau est compact, renferme plus de neurones dans un petit espace que tout autre animal.

I decided I like that mode. It's how I think - it's my voice. I like being funny and sad at the same time, or funny and disturbing at the same time. It's my natural voice.