Foster Claire Keegan Quotes

Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.

You don’t ever have to say anything,’ he says. ‘Always remember that as a thing you need never do. Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.

Neither one of us talks, the way people sometimes don’t when they are happy – but as soon as I have this thought, I realise its opposite is also true.

— Everything changes into something else, turns into some version of what it was before.

Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what is coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.

Where there’s a secret,’ she says, ‘there’s shame – and shame is something we can do without.

She wants to find the good in others, and sometimes her way of finding that is to trust them, hoping she’ll not be disappointed, but she sometimes is.

This water is cool and clean as anything I have ever tasted; it tastes of my father leaving, of him never having been there, of having nothing after he was gone.

Maybe the way back will somehow make sense of the coming.

It’s a hard feeling but as we walk along I begin to settle and let the difference between my life at home and the one I have here be.

My heart does not so much feel that it is in my chest as in my hands, and that I am carrying it along swiftly, as though I have become the messenger for what is going on inside of me.

You don’t ever have to say anything,” he says. “Always remember that as a thing you need never do. Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.

- 'Ah, the women are nearly always right, all the same,' he says. 'Do you know what the women have a gift for?' - 'What?' - 'Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what's coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.

Her hands are like my mother's hands but there is something else in them too, something I have never felt before and have no name for. I feel at such a loss for words but this is a new place, and new words are needed.

Everything changes into something else, turns into some version of what it was before.

At first, I struggled with some of the bigger words, but Kinsella kept his fingernail under each, patiently, until I guessed it or half-guessed it and then I did this by myself until I no longer needed to guess, and read on. It was like learning to ride the bike; I felt myself taking off, the freedom of going places I couldn’t have gone before, and it was easy.

I have learned enough, grown enough, to know that what happened is not something I need ever mention.

She says what she has to say, and no more. May there be many like her,

See, there’s three lights now where there was only two before.’ I look out across the sea. There, the two lights are blinking as before, but with another, steady light, shining in between. ‘Can you see it?’ he says. ‘I can,’ I say. ‘It’s there.’ And that is when he puts his arms around me and gathers me into them as though I were his own.

Many’s the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing.

And that is when he puts his arms around me and gathers me into them as though I were his own.

Daddy,” I warn him, I call him. “Daddy.

Kinsella takes my hand in his. As soon as he takes it, I realise my father has never once held my hand, and some part of me wants Kinsella to let me go so I won’t have to feel this.

She puts her arm around me. ‘You’re just too young to understand.’ As soon as she says this, I realise she is just like everyone else, and wish I was back at home so that all the things I do not understand could be the same as they always are.

It was like learning to ride the bike; I felt myself taking off, the freedom of going places I couldn’t have gone before, and it was easy.

Plants whose names my mother somehow found the time to teach me.

The sun, at a slant now, throws a rippled version of how we look back at us. For a moment, I am afraid. I wait until I see myself not as I was when I arrived, looking like a gypsy child, but as I am now, clean, in different clothes, with the woman behind me. I dip the ladle and bring it to my lips. This water is cool and clean as anything I have ever tasted: it tastes of my father leaving, of him never having been there, of having nothing after he was gone.

I feel at such a loss for words but this is a new place, and new words are needed.

The breeze, crossing the rim of the bucket, whispers sometimes as we walk along. Neither one of us talks, the way people sometimes don't when they are happy — but as soon as I have this thought, I realise its opposite is also true.

Ah, the women are nearly always right, all the same,’ he says. ‘Do you know what the women have a gift for?’ ‘What?’ ‘Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what’s coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.

It is something I am used to, this way men have of not talking: they like to kick a divot out of the grass with a boot heel, to slap the roof of a car before it takes off, to spit, to sit with their legs wide apart, as though they do not care.

- 'Have you been to a wake before?' Mrs. Kinsella asks. - 'I don't think so.' - 'Well, I might as well tell you: there will be a dead man in a coffin and lots of people and some of them might have a little too much taken.' - 'What will they be taking?' - 'Drink,' she says

Kinsella takes my hand in his. As soon as he takes it, I realise my father has never once held my hand, and some part of me wants Kinsella to let me go so I won’t have to feel this. It’s a hard feeling but as we walk along I begin to settle and let the difference between my life at home and the one I have here be. He takes shorter steps so we can walk in time. I think about the woman in the cottage, of how she walked and spoke, and conclude that there are huge differences between people.

This was no coincidence. The best short stories and the most successful jokes have a lot in common. Each form relies on suggestion and economy. Characters have to be drawn in a few deft strokes. There's generally a setup, a reveal, a reversal, and a release. The structure is delicate. If one element fails, the edifice crumbles. In a novel you might get away with a loose line or two, a saggy paragraph, even a limp chapter. But in the joke and in the short story, the beginning and end are precisely anchored tent poles, and what lies between must pull so taut it twangs. I'm not sure if there is any pattern to these selections. I did not spend a lot of time with those that seemed afraid to tell stories, that handled plot as if it were a hair in the soup, unwelcome and embarrassing. I also tended not to revisit stories that seemed bleak without having earned it, where the emotional notes were false, or where the writing was tricked out or primped up with fashionable devices stressing form over content. I do know that the easiest and the first choices were the stories to which I had a physical response. I read Jennifer Egan's "Out of Body" clenched from head to toe by tension as her suicidal, drug-addled protagonist moves through the Manhattan night toward an unforgivable betrayal. I shed tears over two stories of childhood shadowed by unbearable memory: "The Hare's Mask," by Mark Slouka, with its piercing ending, and Claire Keegan's Irishinflected tale of neglect and rescue, "Foster." Elizabeth McCracken's "Property" also moved me, with its sudden perception shift along the wavering sightlines of loss and grief. Nathan Englander's "Free Fruit for Young Widows" opened with a gasp-inducing act of unexpected violence and evolved into an ethical Rubik's cube. A couple of stories made me laugh: Tom Bissell's "A Bridge Under Water," even as it foreshadows the dissolution of a marriage and probes what religion does for us, and to us; and Richard Powers's "To the Measures Fall," a deftly comic meditation on the uses of literature in the course of a life, and a lifetime. Some stories didn't call forth such a strong immediate response but had instead a lingering resonance. Of these, many dealt with love and its costs, leaving behind indelible images. In Megan Mayhew Bergman's "Housewifely Arts," a bereaved daughter drives miles to visit her dead mother's parrot because she yearns to hear the bird mimic her mother's voice. In Allegra Goodman's "La Vita Nuova," a jilted fiancée lets her art class paint all over her wedding dress. In Ehud Havazelet's spare and tender story, "Gurov in Manhattan," an ailing man and his aging dog must confront life's necessary losses. A complicated, only partly welcome romance blossoms between a Korean woman and her demented

God help you child. If you were mine, I'd never leave you in a house with strangers.

Kinsella says a few meaningless things along the way then falls into the quiet way he has about him, and time passes without seeming to pass

Do you know what the women have a gift for?’ ‘What?’ ‘Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what’s coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.

Many's the man lost much just because he missed a perfect opportunity to say nothing (page 64)

Mrs. Kinsella gives me a bar of yellow soap and my facecloth, the hairbrush. As we gather all these things together, I remember the days we spent, where we got them, what was sometimes said, and how the sun, for most of the time, was shining.

Trains of every colour race across the wallpaper. There are no tracks for these trains but here and there a small boy stands off in the distance, waving. He looks happy but some part of me feels sorry for every version of him.

And so the days pass. I keep waiting for something to happen, for the ease I feel to end, but each day follows on much like the one before.

Una parte di me vuole che mio padre mi lasci qui mentre un'altra vuole che mi riporti a casa, alle cose che conosco. Nel punto in cui mi trovo, non posso essere né quello che sono sempre né trasformarmi in quello che potrei essere.

There's a big moon shining on the yard, chalking our way onto the lane and along the road. Kinsella takes my hand in his. As soon as he takes it, I realise my father has never once held my hand, and some part of me wants Kinsella to let me go so I won't have to feel this. It's a hard feeling but as we walk along I begin to settle and let the difference between my life at home and the one I have here be. He takes small steps so we can walk in time. I think about the woman in the cottage, of how she walked and spoke, and conclude that there are huge differences between people.

It’s sweet to feel the open road falling away from us, knowing we will, at its end, come to the sea.

Una part de mi vol que el pare em deixi aquí, mentre que una altra part de mi vol que se m'emporti de tornada, cap al que conec. Estic en un punt en què no puc ni ser el que soc sempre ni convertir-me en el que podria ser.

My heart does not so much feel that it is in my chest as in my hands, and that I am carrying it along swiftly, as though I have become the messenger for what is going on inside of me. Several things flash through my mind: the boy in the wallpaper, the gooseberries, that moment when the bucket pulled me under, the lost heifer, the mattress weeping, the third light. I think of my summer, of now, mostly of now.

Wouldn't it make you grateful, though?' he says. 'A man starved himself to death but here I am on a fine day with two women feeding me.' 'Haven't you earned it?' 'I don't know have I,' he says. 'But isn't it happening anyhow.

És una cosa a la qual estic acostumada, aquesta manera que tenen els homes de no parlar: els agrada tapar un clot de la gespa amb el taló de la bota, donar un cop al sostre d'un cotxe abans que marxi, escopir, seure amb les cames ben obertes, com si no tinguessin cap preocupació.

nothing.

I look out across the sea. There, the two lights are blinking as before, but with another, steady light, shining in between. “Can you see it?” he says. “I can,” I say. “It’s there.” And that is when he puts his arms around me and gathers me into them as though I were his own.

I think about the woman in the cottage, of how she walked and spoke, and conclude that there are huge differences between people.

So mancher Mann hat viel verloren, nur weil er eine perfekte Gelegenheit verpasst hat, nichts zu sagen.

Eventualities. A good woman can look far down the line and smell what’s coming before a man even gets a sniff of it.

The people come and go, drifting in and out, shaking hands, drinking and eating and looking at the dead man, saying what a lovely corpse he is, and doesn’t he look happy now that his end has come, and who was it that laid him out? They talk of the forecast and the moisture content of corn, of milk quotas and the next general election.

,, - Ah, totuși femeile au aproape întotdeauna dreptate. Știi la ce sunt talentate femeile? - La ce? - La eventualități. O femeie bună poate să privească în viitor și să se prindă ce-o să se întâmple cu mult înainte ca vreun bărbat să se gândească la asta.

,,Apa asta e mai rece și mai curată decât oricare alta pe care am băut-o: are gustul tatălui meu plecând, al lui totdeauna absent, al nimicului pe care mi l-a lăsat odată cu plecarea lui.

Can you see it?' he says. 'I can,' I say. 'It's there.' And that is when he puts his arms around me and gathers me into them as through I were his own.

Out in the street, the sun feels strong again, blinding. Some part of me wishes it would go away, that it would cloud over so I could see properly.