Lewis Nordan > Quotes

“There were happy days, with watermelon, and sad days of whiskey.”
― Lewis Nordan

“A thousand times, when the train slowed or stopped, I thought of jumping off. I wanted to die in a ditch. I wanted to disappear. I wanted a different history and geography. In rhythm with the wheels I said I want I want I want I want I stayed on the train.”
― Lewis Nordan, Music of the Swamp

“When I was your age I knew how to listen to television and learn a few things.”
― Lewis Nordan, The All-Girl Football Team

“Louis said, "There ought to be a comic book about geeks."

Dr. McNaughton said, "There are books about geeks."

He said, "There are?"

Dr. McNaughton said, "I'll read you some Faulkner sometime. I'll read you some Eudora Welty, some Flannery O'Connor. Geeks, midgets, anything your heart desires. Better than comic books."

Louis looked at his father. He said, "You'll read to me? Really?”
― Lewis Nordan, The Sharpshooter Blues

“The Mississippi Delta is not always dark with rain. Some autumn mornings, the sun rises over Moon Lake, or Eagle, or Choctaw, or Blue, or Roebuck, all the wide, deep waters of the state, and when it does, its dawn is as rosy with promise and hope as any other.”
― Lewis Nordan, Wolf Whistle

“For one second the woman and I seemed to become twins, or closer than twins, the same person together. Maybe we said nothing. Maybe we only lay in the band of sunlight that fell across our bed. Or maybe together we said, “There is great pain in all love, but we don’t care, it’s worth it.”
― Lewis Nordan, Music of the Swamp

“There is great pain in all love, but we don't care, it's worth it.”
― Lewis Nordan

“Harris loved to read and he shared everything he read. He read to whoever happened to be in the room from whatever paper he happened to be making his way through. Ann Landers and the horoscope, of course, headlines, cartoons, Miss Manners, Heloise, the lives of others, in many forms, long articles on astronomy or anthropology, political pieces, op-ed pieces, book reviews, church bazaars, executions, plane crashes, disco artists, whatever caught his interest.”
― Lewis Nordan, Lightning Song

“In my mind, I gave the woman gifts. I gave her a candle stub. I gave her a box of wooden kitchen matches. I gave her a cake of Lifebuoy soap. I gave her a ceilingful of glow-in-the-dark planets. I gave her a bald baby doll. I gave her a ripe fig, sweet as new wood, and a milkdrop from its stem. I gave her a peppermint puff. I gave her a bouquet of four roses. I gave her fat earthworms for her grave. I gave her a fish from Roebuck Lake, a vial of my sweat for it to swim in.”
― Lewis Nordan, Music of the Swamp

“In a little while they were kissing. In a little while longer, they made their slow sweet love.

The iron bed sounded like a pine forest in an ice storm, like a switch track in a Memphis trainyard, like the sweet electrical thunder of habitual love and the tragical history of the constant heart. Auntee finished first, and then Uncle soon after, and their lips were touching lightly as they did.

The rain was still falling and the scritch owl was still asleep and the dragonflies were hidden like jewels somewhere in deep brown wet grasses, nobody knew where.

Uncle rolled away from his wife and held onto her hand, never let it go, old friend, old partner, passionate wife.”
― Lewis Nordan, Wolf Whistle

“Mr. Raney named the porpoises - Sister Woman, and Renford, and Lamar, and St. Elmo - and could recognize them, and call each by its name, even at night, six feet long, some of them, with a million sharp teeth and a naughty grin. Often when he floated past in the boat and watched their playful wheeling, in and out among the cypress knees, he called out to them, "Lamar, we are all alone in the world!" or "Renford, cork is an export product of India!”
― Lewis Nordan, The Sharpshooter Blues

“Even Solon Gregg was finding it hard to speak to a woman who had just paid hard cash for tampons and on her face wore the look of a woman who meant to use them, as advertised.”
― Lewis Nordan, Wolf Whistle

“The day Glenn Gregg's daddy got back from New Orleans was the same day Lady Sally Anne Montberclair decided to park her big white Cadillac out in front of Red's Goodlookin Bar and Gro. and leave the motor running and scoot inside, out of the first drops of rain, on an errand. Glenn's daddy was named Solon.”
― Lewis Nordan, Wolf Whistle

“Belief and disbelief were the same creature within me.”
― Lewis Nordan, The All-Girl Football Team

“Self-blame is usually a way of avoiding something more hideous anyway, something you’re willing to be punished for but unwilling to change, or even something terrible in the imperfect structure of the universe.”
― Lewis Nordan, Boy with Loaded Gun: A Memoir

“Roy Dale suspected that Mississippi was beautiful. He wasn't sure. He didn't have anything to compare it to. He hadn't even ever been out of the Delta.”
― Lewis Nordan, Wolf Whistle

“Birds are waterproof.”
― lewis Nordan

“Big G.B. said, "Your Daddy ain't magic."
I said, "He ain't?"
He said, "Naw, there ain't any magic."
I said, "What about the blind man's dummy? Is Joesph of Arimathea magic?"
He said, "Get your shotgun, Sugar."
I went to the corner near the stove and took my shotgun by the barrel. I got my shell bag and looked at Big G.B.to see what he was thinking. His face didn't tell me. I stood by the kitchen door holding the shotgun and shells. I said, "Is Joseph of Arimathea magic, Big G.B.?"
He said, "There ain't no magic. Magic is the same as sentimental. Scratch the surface of sentimental and you know what you find?--Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Magic is German in nature and evil and not real. Scratch magic, Sugar, and you're looking for death.”
― Lewis Nordan, The All-Girl Football Team

“Alice leaned first one way and then the other, down the line of children. She said, Is everybody understanding this?"
One child said, "The misuse of power is the root of all evil?"
Alice said, "Well...."
Another child said, "There is no justice on the earth?"
Alice said, "Well..."
Another child said, "We are all alone in the world?"
Alice said, "Well..."
Another child said, "The greatest depth of our loss is the beginning of true freedom?"
Alice said, "Well..."
Another child said, "The disposal of human waste is the responsibility of the brokenhearted?"
These were all phrases Alice had put on the chalkboard after other field trips. It occurred to Alice, hearing these phrases now, that she might have attempted to do too much with a class of fourth graders. She was willing to admit to some excesses.
Alice said, "Just listen.”
― Lewis Nordan, Wolf Whistle

“Uncle said, "If love would save him, wouldn't no harm come to him.”
― Lewis Nordan, Wolf Whistle

“She said, "Daddy thinks that all the world's magic is almost evolved out."
I thought of Roebuck Lake, its swamps and sloughs and loblollies and breaks of cypress and cane, its sunken treetops and stobs and bream beds and sleepy gar rolling over and over and over, its baptizing pools and bridges and mussels and mosquitoes and turkey vultures and, now in the drought, the gray flaking mud-flats and logs crowded with turtles and sometimes a fat snake yawning its tame old cottony mouth like a well-fed dog in a pen.
I said, "Is that what the freak show is?"
She said, "Dirty miracles.”
― Lewis Nordan, The All-Girl Football Team