Carolyn Parkhurst Quotes

Ah, the Gilligan’s Island conundrum: why were the Howells on a crappy three-hour excursion cruise in the first place, when they could’ve been on their diamond-encrusted yacht? And why did they bring so many clothes?

Go on,”Lexy said. “What do you want to be today?

This is happening; this is not fiction. And the thing about life? It doesn’t have texture at all. Go ahead, feel the space around you. Do it now. See? It’s nothing but air.

It’s not the content of out dreams that gives our second heart its dark color; it’s the thoughts that go through our heads in those wakeful moments when sleep won’t come. And those are the things we never tell anyone at all.

We never know, do we, what our neighbors might be doing behind their fences, what love affairs and bloody rituals might be taking place right next door? The world is a more interesting place that we ever think.

Sometimes I wonder how we can be so sure what it is God sees. How arrogant we are, I sometimes think, to imagine there’s someone watching us every minute. To think our every action matters that much.

I sing of the shape a fallen body makes in the dirt beneath a tree, and I sing of an ordinary man who is wanted to know things no human being could tell him. This is the true beginning.

I sing of a woman with ink on her hands and pictures hidden beneath her hair. I sing of a dog with skin like velvet pushed the wrong way.

You have to make your choices, set your limits. Start whittling away at the cosmos, and don’t stop until you’ve narrowed it down to a single, ordinary speck of dirt. And in the end, what you’ve made is not nearly as glorious as what you’ve thrown away.

I’ve always known that the best part of writing occurs before you’ve picked up a pen. When a story exists only in your mind, its potential is infinite; it’s only when you start pinning words to paper that it becomes less than perfect.

The simplest thing that can be said about any person, any relationship, is that it’s not simple at all.

I wake up in that state of grief when you can tell you’ve been mourning even in your sleep.