The Shipping News Quotes

“We face up to awful things because we can't go around them, or forget them. The sooner you say 'Yes, it happened, and there's nothing I can do about it,' the sooner you can get on with your own life. You've got children to bring up. So you've got to get over it. What we have to get over, somehow we do. Even the worst things.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“Everybody that went away suffered a broken heart. "I'm coming back some day," they all wrote. But never did. The old life was too small to fit anymore.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“We're all strange inside. We learn how to disguise our differences as we grow up.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“A spinning coin, still balanced on its rim, may fall in either direction.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“It takes a year, nephew... a full turn of the calendar, to get over losing someone.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“Was love then like a bag of assorted sweets passed around from which one might choose more than once? Some might sting the tongue, some invoke night perfume. Some had centers as bitter as gall, some blended honey and poison, some were quickly swallowed. And among the common bull's-eyes and peppermints a few rare ones; one or two with deadly needles at the heart, another that brought clam and gentle pleasure. Were his fingers closing on that one?”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“One of the tragedies of real life is that there is no background music.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“Their silence comfortable. Something unfolding. But what? Not love, which wrenched and wounded. Not love, which came only once.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat's blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, and that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“What we fear we often rage against.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“It's easier to die if others around you are dying.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“By January it had always been winter.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“If life was an arc of light that began in darkness, ended in darkness, the first part of his life had happened in ordinary glare. Here it was as though he
had found a polarized lens that deepened and intensified all seen through it.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“There was a month of fiery happiness. Then six kinked years of suffering.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“The only cities were of ice, bergs with cores of beryl, blue gems within white gems, that some said gave off an odor of almonds.”
― Annie Proulx, Shipping News

“They say that doing ten sums a day prevents you from becoming senile. But by that argument bankers should be geniuses. That's not right. Thickest heads in the world.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“The water is a dark flower and a fisherman is a bee in the heart of her.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“Where are the reporters of yesteryear?' he muttered, 'the nail biting, acerbic, alcoholic nighthawk bastards who truly knew how to write?”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“The sky a net, its mesh clogged with glowing stars.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“You’ve got a chance to start out all over again. A new place, new people, new sights. A clean slate. See, you can be anything you want with a fresh start.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“The house was heavy around him, the pressure of the past filling the rooms like odorless gas.”
― E. Annie Proulx (Author), The Shipping News

“On the stairs an image came to him. Was love then like a bag of assorted sweets passed around from which one might choose more than once? Some might sting the tongue, some invoke night perfume. Some had centers as bitter as gall, some blended honey and poison, some were quickly swallowed. And among the common bull's-eyes and peppermints a few rare ones; one or two with deadly needles at the heart, another that brought calm and gentle pleasure. Were his fingers closing on that one?”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“At least he could turn on the shower, stand beneath the hot needles, face thrust near the spray head, feeling the headache move back a little.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“No, they didn’t have any money, the sea was dangerous and men were lost, but it was a satisfying life in a way people today do not understand. There was a joinery of lives all worked together, smooth in places, or lumpy, but joined. The work and the living you did was the same things, not separated out like today.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“Quoyle experienced moments in all colors, uttered brilliancies, paid attention to the rich sound of waves counting stones, he laughed and wept, noticed sunsets, heard music in rain, said I do. A row of shining hubcaps on sticks appeared in the front yard of the Burkes’ house. A wedding present from the bride’s father. For if Jack Buggit could escape from the pickle jar, if a bird with a broken neck could fly away, what else might be possible? Water may be older than light, diamonds crack in hot goat’s blood, mountaintops give off cold fire, forests appear in mid-ocean, it may happen that a crab is caught with the shadow of a hand on its back, that the wind be imprisoned in a bit of knotted string. And it may be that love sometimes occurs without pain or misery.”
― Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“Home after midnight from a debate on the wording of a minor municipal bylaw on bottle recycling, he felt like he was a pin in the hinge of power.”
― E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“Billy stretched and yawned, his withered neck taut again for a few seconds. "I can feel the season changing," he said. "Drawing in. This weather change coming means the end of hot weather. Time I got out to Gaze Island and worked on me poor old father's grave. Put it off last year and the year before." Some sadness straining the words. Billy seemed stored in an envelope; the flap sometimes lifted, his flattened self sliding onto the table.”
― E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“For Archie was an expert in dividing the affairs of life into men's business and women's business. An empty cupboard and a full plate were the man's business, a full cupboard and an empty plate the concern of the woman.”
― E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

“Three or four days later he was still thinking about seal flipper pie. Remembered the two raw eggs Petal gave him. That he invested with pathetic meaning.

'Petal,' said Quoyle to Wavey, 'hated to cook. Hardly ever did.' Thought of the times he had fixed dinner for her, set put his stupid candles, folded the napkins as though they were important, waited and finally ate alone, the radio on for company. And later dined with the children, shoveling in canned spaghetti, scraping baby food off small chins.

'Once she gave me two eggs. Raw eggs for a present.' He had made an omelet of them, hand-fed her as thought she were a nestling bird. And saved the shells in a paper cup on top of the kitchen cabinet. Where they still must be. ”
― E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News