Suffering Fools Quotes

“Most of us don't ever get to do the important scenes, all right? ...But--but that's all right, see? Because even if you're just giving 'em a cheap scene, you got their attention.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Most of us don't ever get to do the important scenes, all right? ...But--but that's all right, see? Because even if you're just giving 'em a cheap scene, you got their attention.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“May you die of French pox and rot in hell and all of that--it's the middle of the night and I don't give a trifling fuck anymore.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“...in that tenement house, the one with the burned bricks, there was an old Caribbean witch who made voodoo dolls.
He never saw one, but now he wondered if they looked like Kitty. Small and beautiful and just a little off-kilter. Peculiar in a way you couldn't put a finger on.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“And I can't think what that must be like, to have a thing so beautiful inside you nobody will see.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Nothing has ever happened to Murphy, Coop can tell. Murphy happens to other people.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“And Coop didn't know how to explain to him--what it is to be desperate. To have to thread survival using the hair off your own head because even string is a luxury sometimes.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Diamond earrings are only worth a thousand dollars if the fellow paying for 'em's got a thousand dollars. If you desperate enough, thousand-dollar earrings turn into hundred-dollar earrings. Ten-dollar earrings. Loaf-of-bread-dollar earrings. Just like that.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“All right." Kitty took a breath. "To whoever--"
"You mean whomever."
Kitty's eyes narrowed. "Whatever.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“He's all hot air and bollocks, love. And too dense to know cruel and clever ain't always the same thing.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“And Kitty knew as well as anyone, the throbbing tedium of almost.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Are you in love with her?"
Coop raises his eyebrows. "Ain't that a felony, hereabouts?”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Shall I take that to mean I've encroached upon the Roach Guards this fine spring's eve?”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“He stared back at her, and swallowed. And wondered, briefly, how he was even here. Standing in a dark room with no windows, in a circle of light, looking at her, Marlowe spilling from his lips before he had a chance to remind himself it was too silly, too obvious--Is this the face that launched a thousand ships? And burnt the topless towers--He might as well have told her he wanted to see her naked. He might as well have said he was only standing there because she was staring back.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Coop opens his mouth and his lips tremble. Tremble. Tremble. Words course and roll somewhere inside him, boiling always inside him. A hot kettle bleeding, blurring smoke. Buckle. Pop. Rumble. Always, always deep inside him, a moment--a look--a word--a thought away from bursting over in a fit of steam.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“They're goddamn swindlers, you know," he murmurs. Murphy frowns, and Coop meets his eyes. "Know me word ain't work the price of rope. But them two are fucking swindlers; don't forget it.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“...but certainly this country--this society--are not meant for such a man as him. A man called lord, probably from boyhood; Murphy believes America could make him a fool.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“I have seen a man struck dead by a horse's kick before. This was rather different."
"How so?"
"When a horse kills a man, he does not usually embed a hoof pick in his skull.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“On the one hand Coop wanted to live in a place like this; on the other, he wanted to take a very large bucket of kerosene. Carry it sprinting around the outside of the house, oil sloshing on the trim lawn and pert flower beds. Splashing his pants and his shoes. Come to a breathless stop right at the very front, strike a match and--”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“She could have him swinging from the trees by nightfall--he wanted to do so much more than kiss her now.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“He sits ramrod straight, like a man beaten out of slouching and twitching as a boy. Like a man of gentility, unaccustomed to dark corners and dank basements--at least from this side of them. He does not seem exactly unfamiliar with the unsightly. With the putrid. And maybe that's only from having to scrounge out a living in it, now that he's lost everything--a man of misfortunes.

Maybe it's because at another time, he was the man with the power to snuff things out in the dark.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Six people live here?"
"Well. Five and the baby--"
Farkas snorted. "A baby counts for two."
"Bloody hell; seven, then, by your wonky math.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Nothing was gorgeous in Five Points. The sun might have been shining, and perhaps somewhere else in the city it was a pleasant morning. Cool gray March. Dewy and rain-washed. Perhaps somewhere else. But Little Waters Street, which always smelled scummy and dead--reeking sewage fro Collect Pond and the hot-sick stench of tanners, of bone mills, of wood rot and animal rot--stank especially today after last night's rain like a wet, wormy dog.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“One stupid pun and they'd be finished.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“And he had a plan clicking together, rapidly and rapidly, turning like a crank between his ears, beneath his poor, bald head. He had a plan.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“She drew closer to him in the cold room, settled into a dip in the mattress she'd made her own, and by morning he had found his place around her.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“She flashes a charming grin, perched on a plain old chair in a heap of magnificent dress.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“You're in the room with a regular stunner.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools

“Her hands are naked and now he can see how short, how stained her nails are--he's sure he can see it, even though the room is quite dark now--hands that do not belong to a true lady.”
― Allie Ray, Suffering Fools