Quotes from Kent Haruf

I believe there are failures of character, like I said before. That's a sin.

It was surprising to him, how quickly she could fall asleep.

Love is the most important part of life isn't it. If you have love, you can live in this world in a true way and if you love each other you can see past everything and accept what you don't understand and forgive what you don't know or don't like. Love is all. Love is patient and boundless and right-hearted and long-suffering. Move

The precious ordinary. I

È sempre un incontro alla cieca tra due persone che mettono in scena vecchie idee e sogni e impressioni sbagliate.

Addie Moore had a grandson named Jamie who was just turning six. In the early summer the trouble between his parents got worse. There were bad arguments in the kitchen and bedroom, accusations and recriminations, her tears and his shouts. They finally separated on a trial basis and she went off to California to stay with a friend, leaving Jamie with his father. He called Addie and told her what happened, that his wife had quit her job as a hairdresser and had gone out to the West Coast.

Mi chiedevo se ti andrebbe qualche volta di venire a dormire da me. Cosa? In che senso? Nel senso che siamo tutti e due soli. Ce ne stiamo per conto nostro da troppo tempo. Da anni. Io mi sento sola. Penso che anche tu lo sia. Mi chiedevo se ti andrebbe di venire a dormire da me, la notte. E parlare. Sto parlando di attraversare la notte insieme. Le notti sono la cosa peggiore, non trovi?

When he reached the wire gate he stopped and stood looking back toward the horse barn and the cow lots. Then he raised his head and peered up at the stars. He spoke aloud. You dumb old son of a bitch, he said. You dumb old ignorant stupid son of a bitch. Then

Quante volte sono entrato e uscito da quella porta. Non è così, Mary? Secondo te quante volte, caro? Sei giorni alla settimana, cinquantadue settimane all'anno per cinquantacinque anni, rispose lui. Quanto fa? Fa una vita intera. È vero. È la vita di un uomo, disse Dad

Who does ever get what they want? It doesn't seem to happen to many of us if any at all. It's always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out of old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings.

Sembrava sempre barcollare in una sorta di stordimento, come se avesse perso qualcosa e non riuscisse a ricordare cosa né dove cercare.

Doub era sempre così. Aveva una casa grande e tutto quel granturco ben irrigato, ma si lamentava peggio di un coltivatore di grano. [...] Non sono mai riuscito a capire cosa avesse perso Doub. Magari la giusta prospettiva.

Why can't they figure it out that women take more time and need more stalls? You know why, he said. Because men are the ones who design these things, that's why.

As the weather held that fall Louis often walked out at night past her house and looked at the light shining upstairs in her bedroom, her bedside lamp that he knew and the room with its big bed and dark wooden dresser and the bathroom located down the hall, and remembered everything about the room and the nights lying in the dark talking and the closeness of it all.

Who does ever get what they want? It doesn't seem to happen to many of us if any at all. It's always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out of old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings.

Certo che non è giusto. Niente in questa faccenda è giusto. La vita non lo è. E tutti i nostri pensieri su come dovrebbe essere non servono a un cavolo, a quanto pare. Tanto vale che tu lo sappia subito.

I heard he was disciplined by the church for supporting some other preacher who came out homosexual in Denver. I believe it was something of that nature.

FORTY YEARS AGO

This country's crazy in terms of fame and what people think it means. They expect a writer to be something between a Hollywood starlet and the village idiot.

Someone would cut his name into the face of a tombstone and it would be as if he never was.

I might get me some kind of better grade of beer before I go. A guy I was talking to said something about Belgian beer. Maybe I'll try some of that. If I can get it around here.

That's not what I'm saying. Your best might not be good enough. This is my wife here. This lady means everything to me in the world. I hear you. But—

He should of taken it last year.

People don't want to be disturbed. They want assurance. They don't come to church on Sunday morning to think about new ideas or even the old important ones. They want to hear what they've been told before, with only some small variation on what they've been hearing all their lives, and then they want to go home and eat pot roast and say it was a good service and feel satisfied.