Toby Barlow Quotes

#1. The bullet we're running from is almost never the one that hits us.

Toby Barlow

#2. You take a shower, your head is up, far away from everything, lost in the clouds, but down in the tub, man, you know who you are.

Toby Barlow

#3. Monkeys
What! His partner said.
Monkeys are funny, said Peabody.'So why didn't we we pick monkeys.
His partner sighed and shook his head with sad dismay.
Monkeys? Jesus.
Monkeys' idea of fun is throwing their shit at you. Monkeys always take the joke a step too far.

Toby Barlow

#4. She suspected Oliver only wanted some token acknowledgment that despite her moving on, their exchange had not been completely superficial. She found even the most cavalier sorts still hated to let things pass completely unspoken. Everyone wanted to put a meaning to things.

Toby Barlow

#5. You either trust or you distrust coincidence. It 's either small doses of magic pulling you to your appointed destiny or the devil trying to lead you down to the thorns.

Toby Barlow

#6. The theory is simple.
Every boy, every man, is really
a bit of a golden retriever
or a big chocolate Lab.
Watch any man's eyes
at the bounce of a ball.
His head tilts slightly sideways, just a hair,
as a primitive focus
comes to life.

Toby Barlow

#7. You can't own something unless you can swallow it

Toby Barlow

#8. He was high up now, gazing across to where Montmartre itself gazed out over the city. He was swept along in the wind, admiring the twin steeples of Notre-Dame as he passed, along with the dogged, devilish gargoyles of St. Jacques.

Toby Barlow

#9. It seemed Paris somehow managed to absorb all the beautiful things the rest of the world discarded; it was a sparkling and bejeweled box of lost treasures, a wondrous cabinet that hummed with soft horn harmonies played against a grand piano's minor chords.

Toby Barlow

#10. Knowing someone isn't coming back
doesn't mean you ever stop waiting

Toby Barlow

#11. That's what love does/ It chases the dragons away/ before their claws can sink in.

Toby Barlow

#12. This coyote is a wily dog born
from ancient trickster bones,
Loki, Hermes, the northwestern Raven of lore

Toby Barlow

#13. There are two things that make
the conscious world move,
decision and desire.

Toby Barlow

#14. Minimum wages tends to elicit minimum attention.

Toby Barlow

#15. Each dog marks a section of our lives, and in the end, we feed them to the dark, burying them there while we carry on.

Toby Barlow

#16. She would say 'Bucket moon'
he would answer 'Ladle moon.'
Night after night sky revealed a
bitten moon, a butcher's moon,
an apple moon, a thief's moon,
a rabbit
'Rabbit moon?'
'Don't you see it?'
'I used to chase rabbits,' she had said,
her voice sweet and tired.

Toby Barlow

#17. How old are you?"
"Ah that is a good one. I do not know."
"Before cars?"
"Before trains, before guns. Before people stole the curves from the high clouds and the angles from the flying flocks to build all their little alphabets.

Toby Barlow

#18. He said, You know, whoever hurt you
dies every time they look in the mirror.
That is how they pay."
She crossed her arms.
"And one day, Maria, you will die too,
but there's no reason for you to die
every day.

Toby Barlow

#19. He knows that it's impossible to tell a wolf
from a man if
he keeps his chin up
and his teeth clean.

Toby Barlow

#20. Yes, liquor is the thin white coat of paint you wash over the cracks in your foundation. Makes any rotten house livable for a few hours. Sometimes days.

Toby Barlow

#21. Call him Judas if you want
but he did it for reasons
much older than silver.

Toby Barlow

#22. Blood, fat, marrow, grease, sinew, muscle, guts, hide, fur, sleep
They may twitch in their dreams when they sleep
but they sleep deep

Toby Barlow

#23. The heart is a bloody thing.

Toby Barlow

#24. Immediately he surprised her, for she like the way he kissed, like a man who wanted to swallow life.

Toby Barlow

#25. Some things don't pass, the injuries don't heal they merely find a place in our guts and in our bones where they fitfully rest, tossing and turning between our knuckles and ribs waiting to wake as the shadows grow long.

Toby Barlow

#26. The secret must stay and- according to scientists- the love will live. The heart is quite comfortable with secrets. After all, its home is a dark wet place tucked in among all the other organs who aren't talking either.

Toby Barlow

#27. There in that embrace, she feels something
shuffling around, moving warily
fumbling through the dusty rooms of her heart,
and, one by one, turning on the lights

Toby Barlow

#28. Luck is stupid as a cow and blind as a bat.

Toby Barlow

#29. Days grow hotter and life grows shorter.
Time is somehow running out.
She flips her pillow
so she won't have to sleep on her tears.

Toby Barlow

#30. Like so much of the trouble in the world
it ends simply with exhaustion.

Toby Barlow

#31. And were you cornered by her,
eye to eye,
you would see that
there are still some watchful creatures
whose essence lies unbound by words.
There is still a wilderness.

Toby Barlow