Chris > Chris's Quotes

“And though some days it is very hard, I try not to live for the future. And I try not to dream of the past.”
― Chris Bohjalian, The Law of Similars

“As Jeremy Bentham had asked about animals well over two hundred years ago, the question was not whether they could reason or talk, but could they suffer? And yet, somehow, it seemed to take more imagination for humans to identify with animal suffering than it did to conceive of space flight or cloning or nuclear fusion. Yes, she was a fanatic in the eyes of most of the country. . .Mostly, however, she just lacked patience for people who wouldn't accept her belief that humans inflicted needless agony on the animals around them, and they did so in numbers that were absolutely staggering.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Before You Know Kindness

“Though angels were easy to finds in cemeteries, she said that she didn't especially care for funereal angels and tombstone cherubs -- she wanted her angels among the living, not watching over the already dead -- and thus she scoured parks and gardens for the angels with whom, on some level, she wanted to commune.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Secrets of Eden

“Sara knew that behind its locked front door no home was routine. Not the house of her childhood, not the apartment of her husband's. not the world they were building together with Willow and Patrick. All households had their mysteries, their particular forms of dysfunction.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Before You Know Kindness

“He moved quickly away from her through the ring, his whole body starting forward with the big animal in two-point and then -- the horse's legs extended before and behind her, a carousel pony but real, the immense thrust invisible to anyone but the boy on the creature's back -- he was rising, rising, rising. . .
And aloft.”
― Chris Bohjalian, The Buffalo Soldier

“She didn't care so much whether the world would ever forgive her people; but she did hope that someday, somehow, she would be able to forgive herself.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Skeletons at the Feast

“A term came to her that they used on occasion at the shelter: the double bind...They used the expression in much the same way that they would use a term like catch-22.”
― Chris Bohjalian, The Double Bind

“Nothing -- and I mean nothing, Carly Banks -- is crazy if you're in love.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Trans-Sister Radio

“Now, the separation between depression and suicide is more crevasse than chasm.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Secrets of Eden

“I’m not sure I can think of anything sadder than a homeless person with a homeless dog.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

“The problem with always having to be right is that sometimes you’re not. And so, if you’re like me, those times when you’re not, you try and save face—especially after you’ve seriously fucked up. You make one bad decision and then another, trying to fix that very first fuck-up.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

“They studied the way the world
changed at morning and dusk and imagined how the sun might fall on the skin of a goddess.”
― Chris Bohjalian, The Light in the Ruins

“I don’t know, maybe I just wanted to be alone. Maybe I just didn’t want to be social because antisocial people have a whole lot less to lose.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands