Quotes from Thomas Savage

Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog.

He knew no more of love, he told himself, than he did of tears, but he enjoyed sitting there. And he enjoyed the conversation which seemed to him on the verge of taking an even more sprightly turn. In other words, he knew all there was to know about love, that it's the delight of being in the presence of the loved one.

his habits and appearance required strangers to alter their conception of an aristocrat to one who can afford to be himself.

It was evening, the hour of speculation; Phil pondered how one man passes a gift on to another, how like the very chains and lengths of rawhide rope a man makes, human character is woven on a strand of this and a strand of that--sometimes beautifully and sometimes poorly. It was in simple homage to Joe and to Bronco Henry, those two braiders and plaiters, that Phil braided now. Each had taught him something.

How does one man get the power to make the rest see in themselves what he sees in them?

Take what I've got. You've been good. Phil, at that moment in that place that smelled of years felt in his throat what he'd felt once before and dear God knows never expected nor wanted to feel again, for the loss of it breaks your heart.

Fate punishes the proud

could see that fatty mind grinding and figuring.

he reached out and took her hand, overcome by a shocking tenderness. For a moment he was struck dumb at a habit of hers he saw now for the first time, how whenever she looked up from whatever she was doing, even unwrapping a sandwich in the front seat of a car, she always looked up smiling. He wondered if anybody had ever noticed it before.

Now the sun was high, the shadows shortened, the hours ahead were hot and long. Yes, and so were the years-long, Phil thought, and the shadows they cast.

He taught me that if you've got guts, you can do any damned thing, guts and patience. Impatience is a costly commodity, Pete.

LONG, long before Mrs. Lewis cooked for the Burbanks, a tree fell on Mr. Lewis in the woods and killed him in his "prime." Mrs. Lewis hoped to be one with him again in what she called their eternal home, but the suspended relationship left her with a mixed bag of acid sayings, bitter observations and chilly maxims.

Fate punishes the proud, and dashes hope

they spoke of what they knew

The weather offered a variety of aspects fit for talk, and the subject when broached was leapt on with almost hysterical enthusiasm, that each guest might express and relieve himself before the subject was left lifeless and limp, on the extremes of temperature, of humidity, rain, snow, sleet, the velocity of the wind

He's capital.

Group eating was scarcely less embarrassing than bodily functions

vicious bitch.

His laughter was an insulting bray; it crowded and pushed the air ahead of it. He said many true words about other men. I never heard him say a kind one.19

No serpent's tooth, they say, has the sharpness of an ungrateful child, but no serpent's tooth has the sharpness of many an unappreciated mother.

in the snow on this or that side of the tunnel