Quotes from Nevada Barr

Paul laughed then and Anna knew he was happy because she was, and felt the rush she always did when she realized how much he loved her. SIX The ledge they followed was rapidly narrowing and the river had grown ribbon-thin far below them.

Anna hung up none the wiser but feeling better for having talked with like-minded people.

American mythology would have it that divorced or widowed women in their middle years were desperate to remarry. That had not been Polly's experience. Most had made lives they enjoyed and would only compromise for a very shiny white knight with a particularly breathtaking steed.

To be human was to be melodramatic, to feel things acutely, love and hate and lust, to search for the Holy Grail, outrun the other kids in the fifty-yard dash and care mightily about it.

the kind of life-fatigue she occasionally glimpses in the eyes of the very, very old.

Another terrific reason for not having children: it was so disturbing when animals ate them.

Mismatched images of violence and guns and God made the South a strange land and Anna a stranger in it.

Widowhood conferred a mystery and status divorce lacked. The difference between returning World War II and Vietnam veterans. Both had been through a war, but a judgmental public conferred glory only on those who had been victimized in a socially acceptable manner.

Only humans, cursed with the knowledge of their own mortality and that of those whom they loved, were truly alone; each trapped in an ivory tower of skull and bone peeking out through the windows of the soul.     THE

bad vibes, an underlying sickness or misery that oozed out around the edges of conversations and interactions.

Men and women in the United States carried a terrific burden

Maybe that was why Anna admired people with passion. A person's passion told a lot about who they were. Those without passions seemed to have a hollow place inside. One never knew what grew in that darkness.

A little wine is good for the soul." "A lot is better.

of anger against the other gender for reasons Anna could never fathom.

Like many abuse victims, he carried the shame of the abuser, taking their malfeasance as an indication of personal worthlessness.

it was harder than others to remember that evil was still front page news. Goodness and order were so much the norm they needn't be reported.

To name a thing was to own, control and understand it.

For her the room turned cold, the colorful people surreal, as if normalcy was a gift others shared without her.

Thigpen gave her that cringing, sly feeling incompetents in denial always engendered. In government service, she'd felt it enough times to trust her instincts. Randy

Though she knew she was not personally responsible for the collective sins of the world, she couldn't shake a creeping shame for enslaving Africans, decimating the American Indian tribes, annihilating the passenger pigeon, building strip malls on California's beaches and leaving behind unsightly junk on the face of the moon. Clintus

In the lowlands around Lake Superior weather fronts, with their attendant changes in pressure, gave her headaches. Not so the mountain storms. Cracking thunder and flashing lightning filled the air with ozone till it tingled in the lungs, rejuvenating body and spirit much the same as the air at the seaside or near waterfalls.

Anger, real red-hot anger, was not okay for females. Most learned to repress it so successfully that they didn't even know it was there till it erupted full-blown. It was one of the many things that made dealing with women more challenging than dealing with men. Women's anger went from zero to sixty in sixty seconds—no warning signs, no time to get out of the way.

Christianity, in its fundamental state, brought not only the Heavenly Host into the homes of its adherents but a counterbalancing army of The Fallen. The devil was part of a package deal.

One never read of Zen masters being taken in by scams. They didn't crave anything, and, therefore, con artists couldn't set the hook.