Quotes from Tawni O'Dell

I've never had any desire to be loved. I prefer being feared. It gets the same results but without any hugging.

I told her once I wasn't good at anything. She ran her thumb over my lips raw from kissing her and said survival was a talent.

Capitalism is based on the concept that in order for someone to succeed, someone else has to suffer.

Maybe over time I'll forget the feel and smell and sound of him, the same way I am starting to forget Mom, but I'll never be able to forget that he should've been here.

The only people who come close to annoying me as much as left-laners are cart-hogs, shoppers who leave their carts in the middle of the aisle and wander a few feet away, where they stand with their mouths open staring stupefied at the shelves as if they've never seen food before. I

Most people who stay do it because they're afraid to leave, and most people who leave do it because they're afraid to stay. If you stop and think about it you'll find that fear is the motivating factor for most decisions people make in their lives

I let my soul be corrupted that day, although it would be years later before I accepted what I had done. I forgot who I was and what I should do and only thought about what I wanted and what I could do.

Why would she want to come back here and live?' I wondered. 'Doesn't seem like she'd want to.' 'Why do you say that?' 'She seems different, that's all.' 'I don't know,' Bud said. 'You might be confusing different with dissatisfied.

I learned the most important aspect of a mother's love was not the intensity but its reliable consistency.

Nothing shatters the reality of our good intentions like reality.

He doesn't comment on any of the music I play: Sonny Rollins followed by AC/DC followed by the Broadway score from My Fair Lady.

She's sitting propped up on the

People will only fight so hard to try and old on to what they have, but they'll dig in and fight forever to protect who they are.

You and I have never shared a bank account or a child or a bed. But you are my wife.

Oh, God," Shannon moans. "We have to boil water," I tell Kenny. "She wants Cup-a-Soup?" "No, it's to sterilize things." "What's that?" I start rummaging through my house looking for anything useful. I get a knife, scissors, salad tongs, clothespins, a bottle of whiskey. Kenny

Love is a highly subjective concept; everyone has different standards for what qualifies

She told me once she envied the women who lived back in the good old days who only had to worry about Indians and mountain lions killing their husbands. Something about those things being beyond a wife's control.

I've decided the worst part of being lonely isn't being alone. It's being forgotten.

Qué pena que cuando los gobiernos deciden entrar en una guerra no puedan coger a sus ejércitos y ponerlos en un recinto cerrado a luchar, algo así como un estadio de fútbol, y no tener que joder a personas inocentes

I don't try to sugarcoat things, but I also think my books make positive statements about the people and values in small-town America.

I'm a novelist, and I'm a woman, and I'm considered to be a serious author whether I like it or not.

I saw myself as a writer, a novelist, even though I was living the life of a mother and housewife. Writing was - and is - what I do.

I've decided that the worst part of loneliness isn't being alone. It's being forgotten.

I'm a novelist - not an expert on coal mining. I'm not a politician with an agenda to push. I'm not a reporter presenting facts, and I'm not a sociologist documenting the last struggling remnants of blue-collar America. I'm simply an author who sets her books in coal country because it's where I come from, and it's what I know.