Quotes from Kent Haruf

I told you I don't want to live like that anymore—for other people, what they think, what they believe. I don't think it's the way to live. It isn't for me anyway. All right. I wish I had your good sense. You're right, of course. Are you over it now? I'm getting there. Do you want another beer? No. But if you want more wine I'll sit here with you while you drink it. I'll just watch you.

She did. It was hotter than billy hell out there. I'm glad you've come. She's all tired out. I'm afraid she might get down too far. I never wanted her to have to take care of me like this.

I don't want to bother your father, but I'll come again if that's all right. Yes. I think it would be. I don't know that he's very religious. No. Not in any orthodox way. I understand that. In his own way perhaps. Perhaps.

I don't want to bother your father, but I'll come again if that's all right. Yes. I think it would be. I don't know that he's very religious. No. Not in any orthodox way. I understand that. In his own way perhaps. Perhaps. Well. I'll be going. He held out his hand to shake hers and instead she surprised him and hugged him. He was a good deal taller than she was. Thank you for coming, she said again.

I'd appreciate it if you would just call me a goddamn son of a bitch, Louis said. A man too foolish for words. All right. You're a foolish son of a bitch. Thank you, he said.

I got up and left the house and drove out in the country, the stars were all shining and there were the farmlights and yardlights all looking blue in the dark. Everything looking normal, except nothing was normal anymore, everything was at some kind of cliff's edge, and late that night I came back.

People in their houses at night. These ordinary lives. Passing without their knowing it. He'd hoped to recapture something. The officer stared at him. The precious ordinary.

They walked to the highway and turned past Shattuck's Café

It's always two people bumping against each other blindly, acting out of old ideas and dreams and mistaken understandings.

You don't believe in sins. I believe there are failures of character, like I said before. That's a sin. Well, you're here now. This is where I want to be now.

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. Except I still say that this isn't true of you and me. Not right now, not today. I

Somebody who would go to Italy with you and get up on a Saturday morning and take you up in the mountains and get snowed on and come home and be filled up with it all.

Well, I'm just going to say it. I'm listening, Louis said. I wonder if you would consider coming to my house sometimes to sleep with me.

onto the bare ground next to the cement foundation of the old house when Lorraine came out and said she had a phone call.

In the house Dad said, Go see about her, will you? She won't talk to me now. Lorraine went out to the porch. Can I sit with you, Mom? No, I don't want any company. I don't want to speak to you or anybody else right now.

Lo echabas de menos? Por supuesto. Sobre todo la intimidad. Ya no teníamos la misma. Teníamos un trato cordial y formalmente agradable y educado, pero nada más. No

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

Johnson was a widow with long white hair worn in a knot at the back of her head

Johnson women

Front Range

He wants to see Daddy before he's gone. They never cared for each other before. It's how people are when somebody's dying. They want to forget the past. Forgive things. Just so he doesn't upset him.

Diane tenía una idea, un concepto de cómo debería ser la vida, el matrimonio, que no coincidió nunca con lo que tuvimos. En ese sentido le fallé.

I think that usually the risk in trying to write children in fiction is the tendency to make them too cute or something.

I began writing seriously in my mid-20s and didn't publish my first book until I was 41.