Erika Swyler Quotes & Sayings

Sometimes you made love to a man because you wanted your body to feel something other than the aches and pains of use. Sometimes you made love to man because he looked so good that you wanted to try him on. Sometimes you made love to a man because he fathered your children, he made you a home, he loved you, and he staunched the parts of you that were always bleeding. Sometimes you made love to a man because you felt split in two, and joining with him pulled you back together. — Erika Swyler

She is half a soul, hungry or another...

The girl, she may not know, but she will drink your soul. She cannot help it. Half a soul will kill to be whole. — Erika Swyler

There are harsher things I could say, things I've compiled and archived, each with a catalog card. — Erika Swyler

We carry our families like anchors, rooting us in storms, making sure we never drift from where and who we are. We carry our families within us the way we carry our breath underwater, keeping us afloat, keeping us alive. — Erika Swyler

Something is very wrong. What began as a passing fascination with the book has turned into something darker, — Erika Swyler

Ryzhkova was accustomed to tarot with its layers of meaning, interpretations, and reversals, and how a picture might look one way but contain a contrary truth. Used to her silent apprentice, she had forgotten that language itself was as subtle and slippery as her cards, and that words contained hidden seeds that blossomed with a speaker's intent. A wish for safety meant nothing if the force behind it was a desire to kill. Though she spoke of love and protection, dread, grief, and anger bled through. Each word that fell from her tongue bound itself to paper with a small part of her soul, infusing the cards not with love as she thought, but with a hex burned strong and deep by fear. Buried in the heart of the deck, the Fool's eyes shut. She closed the box. A — Erika Swyler

Hard thoughts are held in small words. — Erika Swyler

Nobody loves you quite like someone who's sorry. — Erika Swyler

She takes a breath and holds it. In middle school the girls used to have contests to see who could hold their breath the longest; Alice once held it until she fainted. — Erika Swyler

Amos did not listen; he was desperately tired of listening; he wished to speak. — Erika Swyler

Half the charm in old books is the marks of living they acquire; — Erika Swyler

How strange it was that cleave had two such disparate meanings; she'd known to cut and tear, but now she knew to cling. She rested her cheek in the valley between his shoulder and chest. Amos — Erika Swyler

How good it was that people, like houses, had frames and that those frames could be so beautiful. — Erika Swyler

I saw that book in the lot and I needed a better look at it. I overbid terribly, but I needed to be certain I had it. Purely speculation, of course - nobody was allowed to get a good close look before bidding - but I thought there was a chance it was my book. The way Treasure Island is Marie's. But the moment I touched it I knew it wasn't mine. I knew it wasn't for selling, either, not at Churchwarry and Son. I can't explain it other than to say that it was begging to be given away. — Erika Swyler

Why the hell don't people understand there are some things you don't talk about? You keep it to yourself so you hurt fewer people. You're supposed to pay with guilt. Guilt is penance. — Erika Swyler

Once you've held a book and really loved it, you forever remember the feel of it, its specific weight, the way it sits in your hand. — Erika Swyler

Silence is its own kind of tension. — Erika Swyler

He sleeps as if making up for years of being awake. — Erika Swyler

She'd learned that to cling too tightly was to strangle. — Erika Swyler

It's brutal to realize that someone might find a life with you in it unbearable. — Erika Swyler

A trigger point for a curse may be hard to find, but if it's there, then there's a chance to break it. There is no stopping sadness. Sadness slips through the fingers. Frank — Erika Swyler

If it's possible to have a reading hangover, I have one. — Erika Swyler

My skin feels too tight, like I might rupture. My mother must have read the end, the cards Enola keeps reading, the same thing Verona Bonn read, all the way back to Ryzhkova. They passed the cards to each other creating history, fingers touching paper, imbuing it with hope and fears, fear like a curse. Of course they wouldn't clear their cards, they were talking to their mothers, and isn't that part of why I've stayed here? The book noted a falling out between Ryzhkova and her apprentice, a falling out over the mermaid. Enola said that cards build history - what a perfect way to wound someone. The cards were hers, Ryzhkova's, then Amos and Evangeline's on down the line, each leaving themselves in the ink, each pulling from the deck, pulling in fears that work like poison. The wind blows a sheet of paper across a split board. The only paper of consequence was never in my possession - it was in Enola's. — Erika Swyler

noon. Having all the time in the world makes getting things done impossible. I've earned a rest; I've worked without breaks since — Erika Swyler

The book is a beautifully broken window with an obstructed view of what is killing us, and something is definitely killing us. — Erika Swyler

It's a small piece of awfulness. — Erika Swyler

You killed him too. It just took longer. — Erika Swyler

I was taught to watch for gentle souls, as they've not the wit to look after themselves. — Erika Swyler

Headaches were like birds. Starlings. They could be perfectly calm, then a single acorn could drop and send the entire flock to the sky. — Erika Swyler

His words are heavy with rare things: care and possibility. — Erika Swyler

He began to pick the trumps he desired, their words - happiness set beside her ear, home by her feet. He surrounded her with hope, each card a wish. — Erika Swyler

We were all bidding on pure speculation. — Erika Swyler

I think sometimes it is difficult to look after ourselves,' he said, thoughtfully. 'We look to friends to do it for us. — Erika Swyler

I'd not taken you for a fool. Silent yes, but a fool, no. — Erika Swyler

Even in a sea of names, a drowning mermaid has a way of standing out. — Erika Swyler

It's sort of like a hobby, but kind of like addiction?" he says, voice tipping up as he cocks his head. "You think you're gonna get just one, but then one starts looking really good with another and before you know it you want every piece of you drawn on. I wish I had more space. Some people don't like their skin, you know?" He pops a piece of broccoli into his mouth, using his fingers. "I picked mine. — Erika Swyler

A librarian remembers the particular scent of glue and dust, and if we're so lucky - and I was - the smell of parchment, a quiet tanginess, softer than wood pulp or cotton rag. We would bury ourselves in books until flesh and paper became one and ink and blood at last ran together. — Erika Swyler

I need to get into the water, to clear my head. — Erika Swyler

The problem with stealing the magician's assistant from a carnival was that you were always waiting for her to disappear. He expected her to vanish. She had in fact, multiple times, before Simon was born, and just after, too.

...Daniel wanted to be worried for, wanted to be missed without doing any of the leaving that missing demanded. When Paulina left, he counted breaths, and thought constantly of the disappearing box. The reappearing was the most important part of the trick. Eventually he stopped living in fear that she wouldn't come back. The more pressing concern was that she was cutting herself in two. — Erika Swyler

He's broken, but not broken enough. — Erika Swyler

She just got sad, okay? Unbearably sad. — Erika Swyler

it was rare enough to be cared for that it should not be taken lightly. He — Erika Swyler

They made an oddly joined puzzle, but the pieces fit in the right craggy places. — Erika Swyler

Perhaps the book opened a door; books have a way of causing ripples. — Erika Swyler

People spend their entire lives moving back and forth over the same water, moving but staying. — Erika Swyler

She'd started swimming early in the morning, when the kids were asleep, when she thought he was asleep. She didn't know her absence woke him, that the shift in the bed was an earthquake. When she climbed back in, she smelled like salt and seaweed. Sometimes her hair would still be knotted on top of her head. She tried to keep it dry. She didn't want him to know. The problem with marrying the mermaid girl from the carnival was knowing that one day she'd swim away. — Erika Swyler

She is not in my books, and what kind of man would choose words that are already written over what might still be? — Erika Swyler

When Amos sat up, Peabody pounded him on the back until he coughed out water. "I have fed you, clothed you, given you all I ever possessed. And you would walk away from me." A — Erika Swyler

Having all the time in the world makes getting things done impossible. — Erika Swyler

Churchwarry knows it matters little how much of it he believes, only that Simon believed. And he'd like to as well. For all the wideness of the water, the town he is in feels closed, isolated. Perhaps the book opened a door; books have a way of causing ripples. He watches a card dip and vanish under a whitecap and sees in the water's spray a hope so bright it blisters. — Erika Swyler

Because there are things you do for people you've known your whole life. You let them save you, you put them in your books, and you let each other begin again, clean. — Erika Swyler

Ever love something so much you start to think it's yours? — Erika Swyler

She'd wanted that, a grandfather. Someone who would stay. Michel had an eyetooth that turned sideways and she loved it more than anything else in the world. But someone wasn't yours because you loved a tooth. — Erika Swyler