7 Quotes & Sayings By Deborah Garrison

Deborah Garrison is the author of seven novels, including The Indigo Spell, The Land of Painted Caves, and Awakening. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous publications including Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Realms of Fantasy Magazine, Black Gate Magazine, and The Best American Fantasy. She has held writing residencies at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, and was a Clarion West Fellow in 2005. She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two children.

1
Lately I can't help wanting usto be like other people. For example, if I were a smoker, you'd lift a match to the cigarettejust as I put it between my lips. It's never been like thatbetween us: none of thateasy chemistry, no quick, half automaticflares. Everything between ushad to be learned. Saturday finds me broodingbehind my book, all my fantasiesof seduction run upagainst the rocks. Tell me againwhy you don't likesex in the afternoon? No, don't tell me-- I'll never understand younever understand us, America's strangestloving couple: they neverdrink a bottle of wine togetherand rarely look at each other. Into each other's eyes, I mean. . Deborah Garrison
2
For you she learned to wear a short black slipand red lipstick, how to order a glass of red wineand finish it. She learned to reach outas if to touch your arm and then nottouch it, changing the subject.she'd begin, or To call your best friendsby their schoolboy namesand give them kisses good-bye, to look away when they say! So your confidence grows. She doesn't ask what you wantbecause she knows. Isn't that what you think? When actually she was only waitingto be stunned, and then do this, never rehearsed, but perfectly obvious:in one motion up, over, and gone, the X of her arms crossing and uncrossing, her face flashing away from you in the fabricso that you couldn't say if she wasappearing or disappearing. . Deborah Garrison
3
Used to be hewas my heart's desire. His forthright gaze, his expert hands: I'd lie on the couch with my eyesclosed just thinking about it. Never about the factthat everything changes, that even this, my best passion, would not be immune. No, I would bask on in aneternal daydream of the handsfinding me, the gaze like a windingstair coaxing me down. .Until I caught a glimpseof something in the mirror:silly girl in her lingerie, dancing with the furniture--a hot little bundle, flush withcliches. Into that pairof too-bright eyes I lookedand saw myself. And something else: would never look that way. . Deborah Garrison
4
It was not like everyone had said. Not like being needed, or needing; not desperate;it did not whisperthat I'd come to harm. I didn't losemy head. No, I was notgoing to leap from a greatheight and flapmy wings. It was in factthe opposite of flying:it contained the wishto be toppled, to be on the floor, the ground, anywhere I mightlie down.. ..On my back, and you on me. Deborah Garrison
For you she learned to wear a short black slipand...
5
For you she learned to wear a short black slipand red lipstick, how to order a glass of red wineand finish it. She learned to reach outas if to touch your arm and then nottouch it, changing the su Deborah Garrison
6
Used to be hewas my heart's desire. His forthright gaze, his expert hands: I'd lie on the couch with my eyesclosed just thinking about it. Never about the factthat everything changes, that even this, my best passion, would not be immune. No, I would bask on in aneternal daydream of the handsfinding me, the gaze like a windingstair coaxing me down. .Until I caught a glimpseof something in the mirror:silly girl in her lingerie, dancing with the furniture--a hot little bundle, flush withcliches. Into that pairof too-bright eyes I lookedand saw myself. And something. Deborah Garrison