John Straley

“I didn't notice I was crying until a stewardess came by and gave me a tissue to blow my nose in. Her arm and wrist were slender and they formed a pretty arch, like the limb of a fruit tree, as she poked the tissue into my clenched fist. She didn't look at my eyes. It was a perfect gesture, an expression of indifference and concern, which is the most a drunk can ask for.”
― John Straley, The Woman Who Married a Bear

“Anchorage is hip deep in the twentieth century. In a downtown bar you can find a deranged redneck watching a Rams game on the wide-screen TV alongside an arts administrator who is working on a production of Waiting for Godot to tour the arctic villages. Both of them will walk around the Eskimo man bundled up asleep on the sidewalk, but the arts administrator will feel an ironic sense of history.”
― John Straley, The Woman Who Married a Bear