Quotes from Kevin Wilson

But I was sixteen. I lived inside of myself way more than I lived inside of this town.

While she organized the albums in the cabinet beneath the hi-fi, she placed the James Chance and the Contortions album Buy on the phonograph and cued up the fifth song, which she remembered her parents often playing before they would all head out into the world to create some new form of chaos.

had never wanted kids, because I had never wanted a man to give me a kid. The thought of it, gross; the expectation of it. But if a hole in the sky opened up and two weird children fell to Earth, smashing into the ground like meteroites, then that was something I could care for. If it gleamed like it was radiating danger, I'd hold it. I would. "Are

What you'll find, I think, is that the things you most want to avoid are the things that make you feel the greatest when you actually do them.

She walked back into the kitchen and placed the dishes in the sink. She picked up the phone and dialed Sally's office number, relieved to be shuttled to her voice mail. "Sally," she said, walking, as always, straight into the sun, "I think I fucked you over again." the portrait of a lady, 1988 artists: caleb and camille fang None of the Fangs could deny it: Buster was beautiful.

Carl pulled up in a green Honda Civic, a surprisingly ugly car, considering how nondescript it was. It looked like the kind of car that a man who sold calendars door-to-door would drive.

She's just a baby," Camille said. "She's an artist, just like us; she just doesn't know it yet." "She's a baby, Caleb." "She's a Fang," he replied. "That supersedes everything else." They both looked at Annie, who was watching them, smiling, a beautiful, glowing, movie star of a baby. Though the Fangs could not be sure, Annie seemed to be saying, "Count me in.

To be a teenager, it takes very little to think that someone else might actually know who you are, even as you spend all your time thinking that no one understands you. It's such a lovely feeling.

How many sandwiches did you eat at some thing like this? There were nearly twenty more on the trays. Did you leave some for propriety sake? She hadn't touched them. Wait, were they decorative?

we were watching Jackson Browne on VH1 Storytellers, a singer she loved so much, she had taped it earlier in the summer and would watch it while she drank a beer at the end of the day. Right after "Doctor My Eyes," her favorite song, I asked her if I could go with Zeke to Memphis.

Honey, I've been to Graceland. It's, you know, smaller than you think. It's really garish, but it's not worth driving that far to see it. I mean . . . he's no Jackson Browne.

Chef Nicole, prior to the complex, had been the executive chef for the day care center at a start-up company in San Francisco before it went belly-up, probably because it had devoted quite a bit of money toward things like executive chefs for the day care center.

I wondered if that was kind of the purpose of art, maybe, to make you see things that you knew but couldn't say out loud.

Well, you ever been to Nebraska before?" asked Arden. "I've flown over it a few times," Buster said, "I would imagine." For the rest of the ride to Buster's hotel, there was the all-encompassing sound of five men not talking, the radio broken and filled with static, the car's engine going just a little faster than it had before.

Your parents were right. They beat me by completely inverting my theory. Kids don't kill art. Art kills kids.

We stood in the doorway, the whole world opening up before us. God, there was so much of it.

Don't lose them," Mrs. Fang said. "They're expensive as hell." The fangs had been purchased from a cut-rate dentist open to interesting trades in exchange for services rendered. They had given him an antique quilt from the Civil War, which had been in Mr. Fang's family for years, and had received, after their molding and fitting, four sets of fangs, snap-fit dentures that would go over their actual teeth and could be reused for years.

In the car, driving home from the airport, the Fangs did not speak a single word. It had all been fake, a choreographed event, but they could not escape the dread that rattled inside their chests. It was a testament to their proficiency and talent as artists. They had affected themselves with the authenticity of the moment.

I don't want to go in there," Bessie said. "Everyone is going to stare at us." "No one is going to stare at you, Bessie," I told her. "They will. They'll think we're weirdos." "Honestly, Bessie? People don't care about anyone but themselves. They don't notice anything. They are never looking at what's interesting. They're always looking at themselves.

believe I read in an alumni newsletter quite some time ago that she got married, had children, turned out to be normal. Usually, you hate when that happens, but it was the best thing for her. Conventional lives are the perfect refuge if you are a terrible artist.

I believe I read in an alumni newsletter quite some time ago that she got married, had children, turned out to be normal. Usually, you hate when that happens, but it was the best thing for her. Conventional lives are the perfect refuge if you are a terrible artist.

loved how expertly bitchy she was; I wanted to study her for a year.

Daniel, if she were blind and deaf, would be the sickly sweet smell of artificial strawberries and singed dough.

As he sat in the airport bar and drank glass after glass of lemon-lime soda and ate handfuls of peanuts and pretzels, he had decided that, should someone ask, he was not a real child but a robot built and designed by a scientific genius. A childless couple had ordered him and he was now being delivered to them in Florida. Beep-bop-boop.