Top 100 Quotes About Gruen
#1. '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
#2. 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
#3. 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
#4. 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
#5. Is where you're from the place you're leaving or where you have roots?
Sara Gruen
#6. 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
#7. 90/93-year-old Jacob wonders as he gazes at his aged reflection, 'When did I stop being me?
Sara Gruen
#9. Hey! Shouts Camel. There ain't no woman in the world worth two bottles of whiskey!
Sara Gruen
#10. 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
#11. 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
#12. I came home poorer by several hundred dollars and richer by more books than I could carry.
Sara Gruen
#13. He's paragon schnitzophonic." "He's what?!" "Paragon schnitzophonic," repeats Uncle Al. "You mean paranoid schizophrenic?
Sara Gruen
#14. I think there is just a vein of humanity that really loves animals and really loves to read about them.
Sara Gruen
#15. 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
#16. 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
#17. He whispers in her ear, and she basks in his attention, trumpeting happily at the sight of him.
Doesn't she remember?
Sara Gruen
#18. Do you have any idea how much an elephant drinks?
Sara Gruen
#19. How hard can it be to find a girl and an elephant for Christ's sake?
Sara Gruen
#20. Laughter, I noticed a footman in old-fashioned knee breeches perched near the top of a
Sara Gruen
#21. 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
#22. 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
#23. The sky the sky- same as it always was.
Sara Gruen
#24. 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
#25. I had my whole life planned.. I knew exactly where it was taking me..
Sara Gruen
#26. 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
#27. I'm glad nothing requires my intervention, because I'm trying hard to maintain my composure. This is the first time I've ever seen a woman naked and I don't think I'll ever be the same.
Sara Gruen
#28. You do right by me, I'll show you a life most suckers can't even dream of.
Sara Gruen
#29. Why the hell shouldn't I run away with the circus?
Sara Gruen
#30. 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
#31. The business of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable was one of the aphorisms his boss liked to quote.
Sara Gruen
#32. Actually, it's not so much that I've forgotten. It's more like I've stopped keeping track.
Sara Gruen
#33. I'm glad has 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 are howling.
Sara Gruen
#34. When will people learn that just because you can make something doesn't mean you should?
Sara Gruen
#35. Honey, I plan to marry you the moment the ink is dry on that death certificate.
Sara Gruen
#36. 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
#37. I scan the room. Catherine is writing quickly, her light brown hair falling over her face. She is left-handed, and because she writes in pencil her left arm is silver from wrist to elbow.
Sara Gruen
#38. game? - but I wasn't shocked, as I once might
Sara Gruen
#39. I stared at him for a long time. If he wanted to end his search for the beast, he need look no further than a mirror.
Sara Gruen
#40. exactly what she was really doing. It took but
Sara Gruen
#41. If you expect people to try to do things your way, you're going to have to give some hints as to what that way is.
Sara Gruen
#42. Keeping up the appearance of having all your marbles is hard work, but important.
Sara Gruen
#43. 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
#45. 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
#46. Although, pretending not to notice is almost worse than noticing.
Sara Gruen
#47. Life is the greatest show on earth!
Sara Gruen
#48. The thought has cheered me, and I'd like to hang onto that. Must protect my little pockets of happiness.
Sara Gruen
#49. 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
#50. Always carry a large flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite, and further, always carry a small snake.
Sara Gruen
#51. 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
#52. With a secret like that, at some point the secret itself becomes irrelevant. The fact that you kept it does not.
Sara Gruen
#53. 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
#54. 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
#55. Afterward she lies nestled against me, her hair tickling my face. 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.
Sara Gruen
#56. When she comes to retrieve me [in the nursing home], after the tan-colored pudding with edible oil topping has sat for a while and been removed ...
Sara Gruen
#57. The only thing that makes me crazier than writing is not writing.
Sara Gruen
#58. I hate this bizarre policy of protective exclusion, because it effectively writes me off the page.
Sara Gruen
#59. In all its beautiful, tragic fragility, there was still life.
Sara Gruen
#60. They grew fat and happy
the horses, not the children, or Marlena for that matter.
Sara Gruen
#61. ...strangely alone in the most public of places.
Sara Gruen
#62. 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
#64. I strain to hear, but my old ears, for all their obscene hugeness, pick up nothing but snippets:
Sara Gruen
#65. The person following is never in control, which she knows full well and which is exactly why she does it.
Sara Gruen
#66. How is it that everyone on this train has so much alcohol?"
"We always head to Canada at the beginning of the season," she says taking her seat again. "Their laws are much more civilized. Cheers.
Sara Gruen
#67. I have to convince myself that this is not a pointless life, even the body is telling me so.
Sara Gruen
#68. 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
#69. The more distressing the memory, the more persistent it's presence.
Sara Gruen
#70. Gorillas are in danger of being wiped out by the Ebola virus. I feel like we have limited time to get to know them and understand them and they're going to disappear - that's terrifically sad. Wouldn't it be great if we could stop that?
Sara Gruen
#71. A distorted development of autonomy is the root cause of the pathological and, ultimately, evil element in human beings.
Arno Gruen
#72. 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
#73. We would rather forgive the evil proliferating all around us than the rebellion against it, which we mistake for the true evil.
Arno Gruen
#74. 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
#75. 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
#77. 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
#78. She's not your friend. She's a barmaid.
Sara Gruen
#79. I just don't think I've had the desire yet to write a vicious animal - like a dog-gone-bad or anything - where I do feel that I need a balance of all types of humans.
Sara Gruen
#80. We traveled for two weeks with a pickled hippo.
Sara Gruen
#81. You work hard on a book and throw it out there and then it's beyond your control.
Sara Gruen
#82. 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
#83. 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
#84. There's a moment in every book when the story and characters are finally there; they come to life, they're in control. They do things they're not supposed to do and become people they weren't meant to be. When I reach that place, it's magic. It's a kind of rapture.
Sara Gruen
#85. 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
#86. After sixty-one years together, she simply clutched my hand and exhaled.
Sara Gruen
#87. 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
#88. My intention that people will feel like throttling her
Sara Gruen
#89. Life goes on with fragile normalcy.
Sara Gruen
#90. He only had the imperfect medium of words.
Sara Gruen
#91. 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
#92. 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
#93. I just can't. I'm married. I made my bed and now I have to lie in it.
Sara Gruen
#94. 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
#95. And August was a force. Charming, gregarious,
Sara Gruen
#96. Paraded around town in an elephant cage, an elephant who repeatedly pulled her stake and stole the lemonade,
Sara Gruen
#97. That moment, the music screeched to a halt. There was an ungodly collision of brass, reed, and percussion - trombones and piccolos skidded into cacophony, a tuba farted, and the hollow clang of a cymbal wavered out of the big top, over our heads and into oblivion.
Sara Gruen
#98. Then I lie down on the horse blanket and drift into a dream about Marlena that will probably cost me my soul.
Sara Gruen
#99. 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
#100. 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
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