Gruen Quotes & Sayings

Now, go shovel some shit. — Sara Gruen

We would rather forgive the evil proliferating all around us than the rebellion against it, which we mistake for the true evil. — Arno Gruen

I just think I'm better equipped to make a study of human personality than trying to get into the mind of animals. — Sara Gruen

Don't mind Russ," he says. "He's a good kid underneath all those holes, although it's a wonder he doesn't spring a leak when he drinks — Sara Gruen

He stares at me, and then leans back in his chair. "He's ill, Jacob."
I say nothing.
"He's a paragon schnitzophonic."
"He's what?!"
"Paragon schnitzophonic," repeats Uncle Al.
"You mean paranoid schizophrenic?"
"Sure. Whatever. But the bottom line is he's mad as a hatter ... — Sara Gruen

I think there is just a vein of humanity that really loves animals and really loves to read about them. — Sara Gruen

What else do I have to offer? Nothing happens to me anymore. That's the reality of getting old, and I guess that's really the crux of the matter. I'm not ready to be old yet. — Sara Gruen

Ellis had slept through the entire thing. That, or he was dead, but I saw no reason to check. If he was dead, he'd still be dead in the morning. — Sara Gruen

exactly what she was really doing. It took but — Sara Gruen

game? - but I wasn't shocked, as I once might — Sara Gruen

At this moment, the story in his head was perfect. He also knew from experience that it would degenerate the second he started typing, because such was the nature of writing. — Sara Gruen

I roll onto my side and stare out the venetian blinds at the blue sky beyond. After a few minutes I'm lulled into a sort of peace. The sky, the sky
same as it always was. — Sara Gruen

I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin.
I want. — Sara Gruen

I look after those who look after me." He smacks his lips, stares at me, and adds, "I also look after those who don't." - Sara Gruen (Water for Elephants) — Sara Gruen

Age is a terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head and silently spreads cancer throughout your spouse. — Sara Gruen

But then this Isabelle turned and laughed and in that instant I saw my wife. This made me weepy and these people whom I didn't recognize exchanged furtive glances and shortly thereafter announced that it was time to leave because Grandpa needed his rest. They patted my hand and they tucked my blanket in around my knees, and they left. They went out into the world, and they left me here. And to this day I have no idea who they were. I — Sara Gruen

The whole thing's illusion, [Jacob], and there's nothing wrong with that. It's what people want from us. It's what they expect. — Sara Gruen

Paraded around town in an elephant cage, an elephant who repeatedly pulled her stake and stole the lemonade, — Sara Gruen

My intention that people will feel like throttling her — Sara Gruen

his hat from his head and presses it to his chest. I walk a few dozen yards from the train, climb the grassy bank, and sit rubbing my — Sara Gruen

I've decided it's not about me at all. It's a protective mechanism for them, a way of buffering themselves against my future death, like when teenagers distance themselves from their parents in preparation for leaving home. — Sara Gruen

But my darling was as frail as a bird. She died nine days later. After sixty-one years together, she simply clutched my hand and exhaled. Although — Sara Gruen

And don't miss Frank Otto, the world's most tattooed man! Held hostage in the darkest jungles of Borneo and tried for a crime he didn't commit, and his punishment? Well, folks, his punishment is written all over his body in permanent ink! — Sara Gruen

You do right by me, I'll show you a life most suckers can't even dream of. — Sara Gruen

Life is the greatest show on earth! — Sara Gruen

Juliet is one of those rare novels that has it all: lush prose, tightly intertwined parallel narratives, intrigue, and historical detail all set against a backdrop of looming danger. Anne Fortier casts a new light on one of history's greatest stories of passion. I was swept away. — Sara Gruen

Even as your body betrays you, your mind denies it. — Sara Gruen

Dear God. Not only am I unemployed and homeless, but I also have a pregnant woman, bereaved dog, elephant, and eleven horses to take care of. — Sara Gruen

The monster - if there was one - never revealed itself to me again. But what I had learned over the past year was that monsters abound, usually in plain sight. — Sara Gruen

No matter how much lip service those committed to power (psychopaths) may pay to the principle of equality (empaths), they can never approach their fellow human beings on an equal footing; their relationships with others are defined solely in terms of power and weakness. Therefore, they must accumulate as much power as possible, with the aim of becoming invulnerable and proving this invulnerability. — Arno Gruen

Jacob: I've never seen so much manure. Wade: Baggage stock horses. They pack'em in 27 a car. Jacob: how do you stand the smell? Wade: what smell? — Sara Gruen

There is no question that I am the only thing standing between these animals and the business practices of August and Uncle Al, and what my father would do
what my father would want me to do
is look after them, and I am filled with that absolute and unwavering conviction. No matter what I did last night, I cannot leave these animals. I am their shepherd, their protector. — Sara Gruen

I was always searching, always seeking the next big thing, because that was the thing that was going to make everything all right again. And while I was working toward it, it gave me something to think about other than that thing I couldn't put my finger on. But it always came back. — Sara Gruen

I had my whole life planned.. I knew exactly where it was taking me.. — Sara Gruen

I paused beneath the arched entrance, where the drawbridge had once been, imagining all the people who had passed in and out over the centuries, every one of them carrying a combination of desire, hope, jealousy, despair, grief, love, and every other human emotion; a combination that made each one as unique as a snowflake, yet linked all of them inextricably to every other human being from the dawn of time to the end of it. — Sara Gruen

And August was a force. Charming, gregarious, — Sara Gruen

Sometimes I think if I had to choose between an ear of corn or making love to a woman, I'd choose the corn. — Sara Gruen

Now don't tell anyone," she says, bustling in and sliding my dinner-table-cum-vanity over my lap. She sets down a paper napkin, plastic fork, and a bowl of fruit that actually looks appetizing, with strawberries, melon, and apple. "I packed it for my break. I'm on a diet. Do you like fruit, Mr. Jankowski?" I would answer except that my hand is over my mouth and it's trembling. Apple, for God's sake. She pats my other hand and leaves the room, discreetly ignoring my tears. — Sara Gruen

Although there are times I'd give anything to have her back, I'm glad she went first. Losing her was like being cleft down the middle. It was the moment it all ended for me, and I wouldn't have wanted her to go through that. — Sara Gruen

That's my girl," he said, struggling upright. "Always up for adventure. You're not like the other girls, you know. There's not an ounce of fun in them. That's why Hank won't marry Violet, of course. He's holding out for another you. Only there isn't one. I've got the one and only. — Sara Gruen

I cling to my anger with every ounce of humanity left in my ruined body, but it's no use. It slips away, like a wave from shore. I am pondering this sad fact when I realize the blackness of sleep is circling my head. It's been there awhile, biding its time and growing closer with each revolution. I give up on rage, which at this point has become a formality, and make a mental note to get angry again in the morning. Then I let myself drift, because there's really no fighting it. — Sara Gruen

Hey! Shouts Camel. There ain't no woman in the world worth two bottles of whiskey! — Sara Gruen

Life. There it was. In all its beautiful, tragic fragility, there was still life, and those of us who'd been lucky enough to survive opened our arms wide and embraced it. — Sara Gruen

Sometimes the monotony of bingo and sing alongs, ancient dusty people parked in the hallway in wheelchairs makes me long for death, particularly when
remember that I'm one of the ancient dusty people, filed away like some worthless chotski. — Sara Gruen

Age is terrible thief. Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back — Sara Gruen

Why the hell shouldn't I run away with the circus? — Sara Gruen

Keeping up the appearance of having all your marbles is hard work, but important. — Sara Gruen

She's not your friend. She's a barmaid. — Sara Gruen

I reach for the napkin, and as I do I catch sight of my hands. They are knobby and crooked, thin-skinned, and - like my ruined face - covered with liver spots.
My face. I push the porridge aside and open my vanity mirror. I should know better by now, but somehow I still expect to see myself. Instead, I find an Appalachian apple doll, withered and spotty, with dewlaps and bags and long floppy ears. A few strands of white hair spring absurdly from its spotted skull.
I try to brush the hairs flat with my hand and freeze at the sight of my old hand on my old head. I lean close and open my eyes very wide, trying to see beyond the sagging flesh.
It's no good. Even when I look straight into the milky blue eyes, I can't find myself anymore. When did I stop being me? — Sara Gruen

But it wasn't long before the old familiar discontent started creeping up on me. I suppose it was always there, somewhere in the background. All I've done, my whole life, is keep it temporarily at bay. — Sara Gruen

I don't like outlining, because books are organic things. Sometimes a book doesn't want to be written in a certain way. — Sara Gruen

Actually, it's not so much that I've forgotten. It's more like I've stopped keeping track. — Sara Gruen

...strangely alone in the most public of places. — Sara Gruen

Life goes on with fragile normalcy. — Sara Gruen

'Ape House' is an ambitious novel in several ways, for which it is to be admired, and it is certainly an easy read, but because Gruen is not quite prepared for the philosophical implications of her subject, it is not as deeply involving emotionally or as interesting thematically as it could be. — Jane Smiley

Shopping malls rarely have any windows on the outside. There is a good reason for this: if you could see the world beyond the window you would be able to orientate yourself and might not get lost. Shopping malls have maps that are unreadable even to the most skilled cartographer. There is a good reason for this: if you could read the map you would be able to find your way to the shop you meant to go without getting lost. Shopping malls look rather the same whichever way you turn. There is a reason for this too: shopping malls are built to disorientate you, to spin you around, to free you from the original petty purpose for which you came and make you wander like Cain past rows and rows of shops thinking to yourself, "Ooh! I should actually go in there and get something. Might as well seeing as I'm here." And this strange mental process, this freeing of the mind from all sense of purpose or reason, is known to retail analysts as the Gruen transfer. — Mark Forsyth

Always carry a large flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and further, always carry a small snake. — Sara Gruen

I tend not to think about the reading public at all, or the business, when I'm writing. — Sara Gruen

Honey, I plan to marry you the moment the ink is dry on that death certificate. — Sara Gruen

I'm truly grateful for my microwave, which allows me to easily clarify butter, steam vegetables, and - when I am really lazy - feed my three kids in less than five minutes. — Sara Gruen

But it all zipped by. One minute Marlena and I were up to our eyeballs, and the next thing we knew the kids were borrowing the car and fleeing the coop for college. And now, here I am. In my nineties and alone. — Sara Gruen

I am further back, surrounded on all sides by wailing men, their faces shiny with tears. Uncle Al promised three dollars and a bottle of Canadian whiskey to the man who puts on the best show. You've never seen such grief
even the dogs were howling. — Sara Gruen

The thought has cheered me, and I'd like to hang onto that. Must protect my little pockets of happiness. — Sara Gruen

It seems there's nothing so good or pure it can't be taken without a moment's notice. And then in the end, it all gets taken anyway. — Sara Gruen

You work hard on a book and throw it out there and then it's beyond your control. — Sara Gruen

He only had the imperfect medium of words. — Sara Gruen

It's hard to reconcile this August with the other one. and to be honest I don't try very hard. I've seen flashes of this August before-This brightness, this conviviality, this generosity of spirit-but I know what he's capable of, and I won't forget it. The others can believe what they like, but I don't believe for a second that this is the real August and the other an aberration And yet I can see how they might be fooled- — Sara Gruen

off, but Osgood, the photographer, was already snoring softly. He was in the center seat, wedged between John Thigpen and — Sara Gruen

Although, pretending not to notice is almost worse than noticing. — Sara Gruen

And then I laugh, because it's so ridiculous and so gorgeous and it's all I an do to not melt into a fit of giggles. So what if I'm ninety-three? So what if I'm ancient and cranky and my body's a wreck? If they're willing to accept me and my guilty conscience, why the hell shouldn't I run away with the circus?
It's like Charlie told the cop. For this old man, this IS home. — Sara Gruen

To say that I wished I wasn't there would be a ludicrous understatement, but I'd only ever had the illusion of choice: We have to do this, Hank had said. It's for Ellis. To refuse would have been an act of calculated cruelty. And so, because of my husband's war with his father and their insane obsession with a mythical monster, we'd crossed the Atlantic at the very same time a real madman, a real monster, was attempting to take over the world for his own reasons of ego and pride. — Sara Gruen

Violet was nothing if not sensible. She didn't even approve when we pulled entirely harmless pranks, like hiding someone's yacht in the wrong slip, or turning the racquet club's pool water purple. — Sara Gruen

It seems natural to surround my fictional world with animals because my reality is full of them. When I'm sitting there conceiving a story, they just pop up. — Sara Gruen

I stroke her lightly, memorizing her body. I want her to melt into me, like butter on toast. I want to absorb her and walk around for the rest of my days with her encased in my skin. I lie motionless, savoring the feeling of her body against mine. I'm afraid to breathe in case I break the spell. — Sara Gruen

Just when you're getting the hang of life, it knocks your legs out from under you and stoops your back. It makes you ache and muddies your head ... — Sara Gruen

90/93-year-old Jacob wonders as he gazes at his aged reflection, 'When did I stop being me? — Sara Gruen

Beneath it was a photograph of Hank alone, standing shirtless on the deck of a sailboat with his hands on his hips. — Sara Gruen

I open the orangutan's door and set a pan of fruits, vegetables, and nuts on the floor. As I close it, her long arm reaches through the bars. She points at an orange in another pan.
'That? You want that?'
She continues to point, blinking at me with close-set eyes. Her features are concave, her face a wide platter fringed with red hair. She's the most outrageous and beautiful thing I've ever seen.
'Here,' I say, handing her the orange. 'You can have it.'
She takes it and sets it on the floor. Then she reaches out again. After several seconds of serious misgivings, I hold out my hand. She wraps her long fingers around it, then lets go. She sits on her haunches and peels her orange.
I stare in amazement. She was thanking me. — Sara Gruen

They grew fat and happy
the horses, not the children, or Marlena for that matter. — Sara Gruen

Then she turns to Midnight and perches delicately on his lowered back. He rises, arches his neck, and carries Marlena from the big top. The rest of the horses follow, once again grouped by color, crowding each other to stay close to their mistress. — Sara Gruen

I stare at her for a long moment. I want to kiss her. I want to kiss her more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. — Sara Gruen

When I first submerged my feet into frigid water, they hurt so badly I yanked them out again. I persisted, dunking them for longer and longer periods, until the cold finally blistered. — Sara Gruen

ones I had watched. — Sara Gruen

Is where you're from the place you're leaving or where you have roots? — Sara Gruen

I strain to hear, but my old ears, for all their obscene hugeness, pick up nothing but snippets: — Sara Gruen

age is a terrible theif — Sara Gruen

She had been warned away from it her entire life, for its depth came quickly, its coldness was fierce, and the Kelpie lay in wait. — Sara Gruen

You know you're a mom when you open the door to the dishwasher mid-cycle and think, 'This is the closest I'm going to get to a spa treatment till next Mother's Day.'"

"Joining the words 'Lose Weight, Effortlessly!' in the same sentence may be a form of hate speech."

"Try to make time for the things that are important, not just the things that are urgent."

"I want my work to matter, my words to count for the good, and to spread some good cheer along the way. — Judy Gruen

My father felt it was his duty to continue to treat animals long after he stopped getting paid. He couldn't stand by and watch a horse colic or a cow labor with a breech calf even though it meant personal ruin. The parallel is undeniable. There is no question I am the only thing standing between these animals and the business practices of August and Uncle Al, and what my father would do - what my father would want me to do - is look after them, and I am filled with that absolute and unwavering conviction. No matter what I did last night, I cannot leave these animals. I am their shepherd, their protector. And it's more than a duty. It's a covenant with my father. — Sara Gruen

Sometimes when you get older - and I'm not talking about you, I'm talking generally, because everyone ages differently - things you think on and wish on start to seem real. And then you believe them, and before you know it they're part of your history, and if someone challenges you on them and says they're not true - why, then you get offended because you can't remember the first part. All you know is that you've been called a liar. — Sara Gruen

He whispers in her ear, and she basks in his attention, trumpeting happily at the sight of him.
Doesn't she remember? — Sara Gruen

The longer I do this job, the less I like people. The species, of course," he adds grimly. "There are individuals I like just fine. — Sara Gruen

At home, she sulked with extravagance, and I learned early that silence was anything but peaceful. She was always upset about some slight, real or imagined, and more than capable of creating a full-blown crisis out of thin air. — Sara Gruen

It was full of luxurious trappings and shiny baubles, and that had blinded me to the fact that nothing about it was real. — Sara Gruen

I used to think I preferred getting old to the alternative, but now I'm not sure. Sometimes the momotony of bingo and sing-alongs and ancient dusty people parked in teh hallway in wheelchairs makes me long for death. Particularly when I rememver that I'm one of the ancient dusty people, filed away like some worthless tchotchke. — Sara Gruen

Bathing is even more embarrassing, because I have to strip down to my birthday suit in front of a nurse. Now, there are some things that never die, so even though I'm in my nineties my sap sometimes rises. I can't help it. They always pretend not to notice. They're trained that way, I suppose, although pretending not to notice is almost worse than noticing. It means they consider me nothing more than a harmless old man sporting a harmless old penis that still gets uppity once in a while. Although if one of them took it seriously and tried to do something about it, the shock would probably kill me. — Sara Gruen

With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not. — Sara Gruen

For the rest of the night, all I could think about was how many heads had lain on those pillows before my own. — Sara Gruen

It's as though I've been sleepwalking and suddenly woken to find myself here — Sara Gruen

It's just a crazy damned life, that's all ... — Sara Gruen