Quotes from Lydia Millet

Too often the future was somewhere else, a land where you might find yourself one day. There was no need to travel there on purpose. Easy to tell yourself the future could be staved off and nothing had to change: the present would stretch in a band of gold along the horizon, bright line joining the earth and sky.

Fear could turn you into a statue. Some people were statues all their lives. They feared the freedom of others, that others' freedom could end up hurting them. A person might want to be free to do something to you, often. One man's freedom was another man's aggravated assault.

Freudian Slip: When You Mean One Thing And Say Your Mother.

Hating's easy. Couldn't be easier. It's just a default setting. The easy way out. It's all the rest that's actually hard.

The nuclear threat. So quaint." "It's like, if only. Right?" "The climate deal makes nukes look kind of sweet. Like being scared of cannons." "Slingshots." "A Hyksos recurve bow." "Canaanite sickle-swords.

HIDING OUR PARENTAGE was a leisure pursuit, but one we took seriously. Sometimes a parent would edge near, threatening to expose us. Risking the revelation of a family bond. Then we ran like rabbits.

He felt locked into Lane's version of him. Disposable. Occupying a space, a slot in the world, for no good reason. And therefore, in the end—after years of what he took to be closeness—not even worth a goodbye. He must be less than no one. Because no one, at least, contained possibility.

Mer-people could be read as a colonialist term," explained the biologist.

That other people found a community easily struck him as mysterious; the city was a wide network of generic streets and buildings, among which small figures were suspended in casual segregation. The space between them was air and metal.

Good news. Maybe the insects would handle it. Since the dinosaurs didn't have it in them. The insects might be naturals at revolution, with their hive minds. Their brainless, decentralized intelligence. That was the answer. Insects. Even more ancient than the birds. A formidable legion.

And freedom, that sacred cow that was always invoked as an excuse for bad behavior, all manner of atrocity—what was it, even? They told you to love it, in the schools and the songs, but never said what it was. Possibly, to many of them, all it meant was the right to have money. Or get more of it.

See this, Juice? Science comes from nature. It's kind of a branch of it. Like Jesus is a branch of God. And if we believe science is true, then we can act. And we'll be saved. Juicy stuck a bleeding finger in his mouth. Saved like, go to heaven? Holmes, that's some Santa Claus shit. ...No. Like the earth. The climate. The animals, said Jack. Heaven's part of the code. It just means, a good place for us all to live.

You gotta be a generalist, in the new climate. But that's not enough either. If there's too much poison around. We're talking pesticides, mostly. Agrochemicals everywhere. Take the sparrows. So anyways, I'd pick raven. A raven can kill, but will he eat garbage? Yes. He will.

She never understood why painters made ugly things. A, who wanted them in their house? This guy, obviously . . . who had no taste, or anyway was stuck in the nineties. And 2, it seemed like showing off. Like, hey, this is ugly! In your face. People were rude and called it art.

Plus if there were really mermaids, I hoped they didn't look like Ariel.

In the parlor I caught sight of my mother kneeling in front of a liquor cabinet, as though before an altar. "We could also use bourbon, sherry, vodka, and vermouth," she told her cell. I waved at her, since we hadn't seen each other in days. She saw me but ignored me completely. "Make it at least four Bulleits," she said to the phone. "Wait. Do they have the jumbo size?

It turned out Juicy's place took the prize: a mansion in Westchester County. He'd once muttered "north of Harlem"—probably trying to maintain his street cred. Which was imaginary. He lived in a ten-bedroom house in Rye.

We all have our skill sets, right?

Hadn't they confiscated our cell phones, our tablets, all of our screens and digital access to the outside? We were being held in an analog prison, said David.

Ugly city, except where the rich lived. Los Angeles was stark like that. Ugly where money wasn't, beautiful where it was. Well, not always. Along the beach even the rich lived in ugly buildings.

Dear friends and family, This year we did not get engaged. We acquired no pet, and we did not produce a child. We did not buy a car or house. We did not take the package deal. We did not join the club. We did not order the special. We never multiplied our miles. We had some arguments, that's true. There was so much we did not see. We did not know. We did not understand. At times we drank heavily. Happy holidays to all! xoo, Lane and Gil.

Is she in a persistent vegetative state?" quavered David's mother. "Does she have brain damage?" My mother patted her shoulder robotically with a flat, board-like hand. "Unlikely," she said. "From a statistical perspective." A natural nurturer, my mother.

We need people like you, Dobson," said Gina. "In academia, where I work. Man, do we ever need people like you. People who have been trained. To do the high-level work. Such as killing.

At times, when a deer saw a man walking in a forest, he might prick his ears up and stand still as a statue. Waiting. Wary. Meaning no harm. What are you? asked his ears. And oh. What am I? Sometimes the answer was, You're dead. And the deer crumpled to his knees.