Quotes from Jo Ann Beard

within the souls of the awkward and the overlooked often burns something radiant.

We sit silently in our living room. He watches the mute television screen and I watch him. The planes and ridges of his face are more familiar to me than my own. I understand that he wishes even more than I do that he still loved me.

Sometimes when you're cruel to others, it's because you've gotten yourself into a situation you can't get out of.

This is where the pivotal events of my childhood unfolded, while I ate banana and root beer Popsicles, two by two, tucking the sticks neatly under the skirt of the chair. It's where Sunnybank Lad met Lady, Ken met his friend Flicka, Atlanta burned, Manderley burned, Lassie came home, Jim ran away, Alice got small, Wilbur got big, David Copperfield was born, Beth died, and, on an endless gloomy winter afternoon, Jody shot his yearling.

In a few hours the world will resume itself, but for now we're in a pocket of silence. We're in the plasmapause, a place of equilibrium, where the forces of the earth meet the forces of the sun. I imagine it as a place of stillness, where the particles of dust stop spinning and hang motionless in deep space.

The way everything seems to be working out right now, I wouldn't be surprised if I ended up dead before the night is over.

On the very tip of his tongue is his Firerancher. Thin as tissue paper, it looks like the moon in the daytime sky. Suddenly love is looming over the car, as big and invisible as the ghost mountains of the Comobabi range. I smile at him and turn up the radio with my toes.

It feels weird right at this moment to not be anybody's sidekick. Hard to explain, but when I look at the moon, it seems like it's paying attention to me, instead of me paying attention to it. It's way up there now. Hi, moon, I say silently to it. Yes, I'm high, it says back. The moon has a sense of humor.

I do miss childhood: one long trance state, broken only by bouts of sickening family discord.

As she lies in the bed she weeps, for Bing, for the melting, shimmering candles, the filigree on the holiday tablecloth. She is an unwilling astronaut, bumping against the thick glass of the ship, her line tangling lazily in zero gravity, face mask fogged with fear. My sister reaches across, over the bed, and we both embrace the mother, holding her on earth, pulling her onto the ship, breathing our oxygen into her line. Ten hours later she is dead.

I understand that he wishes even more than I do that he still loved me.

My domestic partner describes me as having "penetrating sanity," but partly that's because he can sleep through anything, and partly it's because he believes in the power of suggestion.

Instead of slapping her head, I do what they tell you to do: count to ten. Only I do it the gifted way: 123+456+789+10. When your sister has hurtled you swerving into the darkness, stranded you at a funeral home, and threatens to get you in trouble, just stop and count to 1,378 before you respond.

A small bubble of self-esteem percolated up from my depths.

I thought to myself, not for the first time in this life, Everything is perfect; all those things that I always think are so bad really aren't bad at all. Then I noticed that out my window the clouds had parted, the clear night sky was suddenly visible, and the moon — a garish yellow disk against a dark wall — seemed to be looking at me funny.