Donald Ray Pollock

“He imagined the door to a sad, empty room closing with a faint click, never to be opened again, and that calmed him a little.”

“Six months ago, her old doctor at the Henry J. Hamilton Rehabilitation Centee had put her back on all her medications after somebody disguised in a paper bag had tried to strangle her in front of the Tobacco Friendly. Though she described the sack perfectly, even drew a picture of it down at the station, the cops never found a single suspect.”

“The glass door swung open and two big, homely women walked in looking guilty. They were the kind of women who, out of sheer loneliness, end up doing kinky stuff with candy bars and wake up with apple fritters in their hair.”

“Jimmy's eyes would turn as red and sticky as candy, and his head would fall back against the seat in a dream. If he were lucky tonight, maybe he would see something that he hadn't seen before. And then it would be my turn.”

“I don't know,' Del said. 'I read this book. I guess you could say we were looking for a better life.''Did you find it?' the Fish Stick Girl asked.'No, it was just a goddamn book. I ain't read one since.”

“Look, girls don't care how many push-ups you can do. They just want to get high and wear flowers in their hair. Maybe steal a car.”

“A lot of people get the wrong impression, think there's something romantic or tragic about hitting bottom.”

“The Oxys filled holes in me I hadn't realized were empty. It was, at least for those first few months, a wonderful way to be disabled. I felt blessed.”

“Unless he had whiskey running through his veins, Willard came to the clearing every morning and evening to talk to God. Arvin didn't know which was worse, the drinking or the praying. As far back as he could remember, it seemed that his father had fought the Devil all the time.”

“They's a lot of no-good sonofabitches out there."Arvin asks, "More than a hundred?"Willard laughed a little and put the truck in gear. "Yeah, at least that many.”

“I'm beginning to believe that anything I do to extend my life is just going to be outweighed by the agony of living it.”

“When you first heard him talking about it, you'd figure he was batshit crazy, but really, he was just trying to fill up his days so he didn't have to think about what a fucking mess he had made of everything. It's the same for most of us; forgetting our lives might be the best we'll ever do.”