Dinosaurs Lydia Millet Quotes

Maybe surrender, when it was called for, was the hard part. Not the fight.

It’s a basic test,” said Ted. “Whether you grab your weapons. Because you feel threatened. Or can lay down your arms after someone has injured you. Just put them down and walk forward. Holding up your white flag.” Surrender, thought Gil. Maybe it wasn’t the coward’s way after all. Maybe surrender, when it was called for, was the hard part. Not the fight. But how did you know when it was called for?

But being alone was also a closed loop. A loop with a slipknot, say. The loop could be small or large, but it always returned to itself. You had to untie the knot, finally. Open the loop and then everything sank in. And everyone. Then you could see what was true--that separateness had always been the illusion. A simple trick of flesh.

Inside the castle hovered a shadow version of him, alone, watching this full, well-lit house from the other’s emptiness. Looking through the glass, he was divided in two. He saw himself with the family around him. Glad of it. Almost proud. As a parent might be. He was his own parent. He’d learned to be alone, walking. And it was still good now and then. For thought. For recognition. But being alone was also a closed loop. A loop with a slipknot, say. The loop could be small or large, but it always returned to itself. You had to untie the knot, finally. Open the loop and then everything sank in. And everyone. Then you could see what was true—that separateness had always been the illusion. A simple trick of flesh. The world was inside you after that. Because, after all, you were made of two people only at the very last instant. Before that, of a multiplication so large it couldn’t be fathomed. Back and back in time. A tree in a forest of trees, where men grew from apes and birds grew from dinosaurs. The topmost branches were single cells. And even those cells were “ And even those cells were not the start, for they drew life from the atmosphere. The air. And the vapor. Suspended. It was the fear and loneliness that came in waves that often stopped him from remembering the one thing. The one thing and the greatest thing. Frustrating: he could only ever see it for a second before he lost sight of it again. Released his grip. Let it slip away into the vague background. But it had to be held close, the tree. In the dark, when nothing else was sure, the soaring tree sheltered you. Almost the only thing you had to see before you slept. How you came not from a couple or a few but from infinity. So you had no beginning. And you would never end.

She gazed right through it to the future, another time and place without this jangling cascade of arbitrary noise.

He felt locked into Lane’s version of him. Disposable. Occupying a space, a slot in the world, for no good reason. And therefore, in the end—after years of what he took to be closeness—not even worth a goodbye. He must be less than no one. Because no one, at least, contained possibility.

Good news. Maybe the insects would handle it. Since the dinosaurs didn’t have it in them. The insects might be naturals at revolution, with their hive minds. Their brainless, decentralized intelligence. That was the answer. Insects. Even more ancient than the birds. A formidable legion.

And freedom, that sacred cow that was always invoked as an excuse for bad behavior, all manner of atrocity—what was it, even? They told you to love it, in the schools and the songs, but never said what it was. Possibly, to many of them, all it meant was the right to have money. Or get more of it.

You gotta be a generalist, in the new climate. But that’s not enough either. If there’s too much poison around. We’re talking pesticides, mostly. Agrochemicals everywhere. Take the sparrows. So anyways, I’d pick raven. A raven can kill, but will he eat garbage? Yes. He will.

They say those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, but don’t we all?

Dear friends and family, This year we did not get engaged. We acquired no pet, and we did not produce a child. We did not buy a car or house. We did not take the package deal. We did not join the club. We did not order the special. We never multiplied our miles. We had some arguments, that’s true. There was so much we did not see. We did not know. We did not understand. At times we drank heavily. Happy holidays to all! xoo, Lane and Gil.

America had once ruled the earth, he said. But it had never bothered to educate its people. So now it was a country of ignorant peasants, a noisy and stupid rabble.

You can’t change the facts, Gilbert, his grandmother had told him. All you can change is how you behave. In the face of them. And possibly how you feel, she’d added gently. It was a fleeting soft moment. Freedom can only be found in the mind, my dear, she said. Not in the world.