Amanda Coplin Quotes & Sayings

But she did not know where the doubt, the fear, began. It had always been there, but she had sought to rearrange it within herself; and in the constant rearrangement was transformation. — Amanda Coplin

She craved it for some reason- she would not look at it directly- that sense of despair. — Amanda Coplin

her cheeks splotched red from the cold, as she — Amanda Coplin

It was as if she had grown, changed, overnight; her hair was different, her eyes; the shade and texture of her flesh, her limbs; and, most disconcerting and delightful of all, she was beginning to speak. She increasingly talked back to him when he murmured to her, and he understood that she was becoming what she was destined to become, when he first held her in the open air of the world: her own person, her own independent and particular self. He marveled at it all. And what would she grow up to be like? What was inside her, already formed, that would draw forth with time, and what was it that she most needed him to teach her? Would she be amenable to his help, his advice in worldly matters? And what advice did he have to give her? — Amanda Coplin

And that was the point of children, thought Caroline Meddey: to bind us to the earth and to the present, to distract us from death. — Amanda Coplin

He regarded the world - objects right in front of his face - as if from a great distance. For when he moved on the earth he also moved in other realms. In certain seasons, in certain shades, memories alighted on him like sharp-taloned birds: a head turning in the foliage, lantern light flaring in a room. — Amanda Coplin

She was haunted by the possibility that she had missed her chance for happiness. But she had not missed her chance, she told herself, for her chance would not let her get away so easily. Each morning she was fortified by hope: the future loomed. — Amanda Coplin

It was only too bad that to gossip and support mean ideas was easier and more enjoyable, really, than to keep quiet and know in silence that the true story can never be told, articulated in a way that will tell the whole truth. Even if it is better to be quiet, quietness will never reign. People talked, even the best of them. — Amanda Coplin

Where some women wanted mere privacy, she yearned for complete solitude that verged on the violent; solitude that forced you constantly back upon yourself, even when you did not want it anymore. — Amanda Coplin

The sound was loud and soft at the same time, like the sound upon which other sound was built. You didn't hear the horses until you listened for them; and then they were very loud. — Amanda Coplin

And the wind was alive the day they put Jane into the ground; it played over the plateau and made the sound of rain in the tree and in the long dry grass. And Talmadge was relieved: for the sound hid them all from each other, and Della in her grief. Her hair blowing over her face as she stood beside the grave, unmoving. — Amanda Coplin

How lovely, the portraitist kept saying. How lovely. — Amanda Coplin

She revered solitude, but only because there was the possibility of breaking it. Of communing at last with another. — Amanda Coplin

They were blessed, said Jane; they were going to give birth to themselves. It would be themselves they gave birth to, only better. That was why she and Della must work so hard to protect them, their children. In protecting the children Jane and Della would also (Jane explained this over and over again) save themselves - — Amanda Coplin

When one is young, he thought, one thinks that one will never know oneself. But the knowledge comes later; if not all, then some. An important amount. — Amanda Coplin

She was becoming what she was destined to become ... : her own person, her own independent and particular self. — Amanda Coplin

Riding in the herd, the sound like one constant, endless sigh; some frantic and others calm, some remembering some wrong done to them while others wanted only to sleep, and each struggling with hunger and thirst; some horses pregnant, others desperate to copulate; and all moved forward as one body amid the heat and the dust. — Amanda Coplin

We do not belong to ourselves alone, she wanted to say, but there was no one to speak to. — Amanda Coplin

He did not expect her to be happy - how that word lost meaning as the years progressed - but he only wished her to be unafraid, and able to experience small joys. — Amanda Coplin

Not only a few times, but every time he did not give in to his urge to go look for her, he resented the moment that came in its place. Even if the moment was beautiful and was something he valued, and made him who he was. He could not help but also long for that other life in which he lived with Della, even if she abused him. — Amanda Coplin

The odor of the room was baked fruit, beeswax, pine, and old newspapers. — Amanda Coplin

How like the orchard she was. Because of her slowness and the attitude in which she held herself -seemingly deferent, quiet-it appeared even a harsh word would smite her. But it would not. She was like an egg encased in iron. She was the dream of the place that bore her, and she did not even know it. — Amanda Coplin

Objects too at times, after all, like the landscape, held the potential for meaning- she took out the first object now- and were able to comfort. — Amanda Coplin

In the schoolhouse north of Cashmere, along the river, Angelene sat near the window that looked out onto a large cottonwood. She drew courage from that tree, which seemed to have been planted there for the sole purpose of being her friend. — Amanda Coplin

The other chief love- and how similar it was to science, and how different- was reading. As soon as she realized the figures on the page meant something- could be strung together as words, and then sentences, and then paragraphs- she was covetous of the whole system. It seemed a new universe to her. And it was. Everything opened up. Some stories were meant to inform, and others were meant to entertain. And then other stories were separate from those- this the young teacher did not tell her, it was something Angelene figured out on her own, the first year, when a man visited and read them a poem out of a tome of poems- that seemed crafted to relay some secret, and even more than that, some secret about herself. Angelene was mesmerized. What was available for her to know? What secrets did the world hold? Which secrets would be revealed to her through the soil, and which through words? — Amanda Coplin

In April the true labor began. He rose before dawn and was at work in the trees as the sun rose. On a ladder, with his shears, maneuvering into the farthest reaches of the understories. At times whistling, at times muttering to himself. But mostly silent. Always working in that calm, deliberate way that made it impossible to imagine that he would ever complete the row, not to mention the entire orchard, in time. How could he afford to be so careful? It's that it was just possible, but barely. The design, the organization he achieved in the rows, in each tree, pleased him like nothing else. It was his passion, his whole life. — Amanda Coplin

What was recognized as success - the applause, the exclamations, the job well done; she was already off the horse, pumping people's hands in congratulations - did not fill her. Did not even begin to fill her. What she wanted was the despair, or something else that was found there. Something that lived with despair. But the moment she was inside it, she failed to find what it was she wanted so badly. And so she would ride again. — Amanda Coplin

She could strive for perfection only in certain, few things; beyond that, it was important only to be tidy. — Amanda Coplin

THERE CAME AGAIN, during that following spring and summer, the feeling that Angelene had almost forgotten, of being alone in the orchard, of being utterly herself. — Amanda Coplin

When he was a boy he was happy when the men arrived, and in a way wanted them to remain forever
but he was also anxious that they had arrived, that he was no longer alone. The sorrow came from those two feelings
the happiness of company, the anxiety of interrupted solitude. That was what he had felt, he thought, and what to some extent he still felt. — Amanda Coplin

The sorrow came from those two feelings - the happiness of company, the anxiety of interrupted solitude. — Amanda Coplin

You belong to the earth and the earth is hard. — Amanda Coplin

He did not go after her himself, but those months after he fell out of the tree, though his physical wounds more or less healed - though he walked with a slight limp afterward - a kind of vacancy, a silence, hung around him, like a mantle on his shoulders. — Amanda Coplin

The man said that a portion of track just up into the mountain pass had been damaged by a rockslide early that morning, and they had shut down the whole system for maybe as long as the rest of the summer. The man shook his head, incredulous, disgusted, but also delighted in the way that people are often delighted by bad news, or the opportunity to discuss bad news that does not immediately affect them. — Amanda Coplin

She was both more assured and quieter, deeper. It was as if the distance she had traveled had ironed out some of her foolish impulsiveness, her flippancy. — Amanda Coplin

The night has made up its mind. It's we who are too slow, who move in the wake of events already decided for us, who refuse, who are too weak or too simple, or are perhaps, strictly, unable to understand — Amanda Coplin