11.29.2005

More Pam Houston

Some quotes from Houston's novel Sight Hound:

She's felt so bad for so long she don't know good when it's bubbling right out of her. And even when she catches up to it, she's waiting for whatever bad thing is about to happen next.

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She was happy again. She was, if the truth be told, happier than she had ever been. She bought throw pillows, for example, and buying throw pillows is in my experience the single best indicator that a female human being is feeling pretty good.

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If I had a daughter, I would tell her what a funny thing love is, how it never looks the way you think it's going to, how no matter how old you get, it is love that keeps surprising you. How in the songs sometimes it involves beaches and champagne and chocolate-covered roses, but in real life it is just a prematurely balding man standing in a drought-dried field telling you that he loves you, and that you should do whatever on earth you want.

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She wasted so much time trying to act perfectly, trying to guard against the loss, always fearful of making the mistake that would lead to it.

Sometimes, no matter what we do, the good thing happens anyway.

The only life worth living is a life full of love; that loss is always part of the equation; that love and loss conjoined are the best opportunity we ever get to live fully, to be our strongest, our most compassionate, our most graceful selves.

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Pam Houston always says it best.

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