Sharks In The Time Of Saviors Quotes

Whenever I've made a choice in my life, a real choice... I can always feel the change, after I choose. The better versions of myself, moving just out of reach.

But that's the problem with the present, it's never the thing you're holding, only the thing you're watching, later, from a distance so great the memory might as well be a spill of stars outside a window at twilight.

If a god is a thing that has absolute power over us, then in this world there are many. There are gods that we choose and gods that we can't avoid; there are gods that we pray to and gods that prey on us; there are dreams that become gods and nightmares that do, as well.

Years already I'd been trying to understand what was inside me, while the rest of the world was trying it to tear it out.

Hope can be a god as well. It's something that can be prayed to.

There was this one philosophy class I been in at the university, where the professor was talking about force. He said people think force and power is the same thing, but really force is what you use when you don't got power.

Everyone's always 'just joking,' right? Except when they're not.

Big destiny is a thing you get drunk on.

If someone were to ask me what money means this would be what I would say: The world feels like it will stay under you no matter what you do.

He said people think force and power is the same thing, but really force is what you use when you don't got power.

Take a match and hold it to the strip, start the strike. Somewhere at the microscopic level there are whole worlds of hot light that gather and jump to the match tip. That's what we were.

My time as a mother was the same as those last gasping breaths of the owl, and soon enough you'd have to gently set down my love, fold it up into the soil of your childhood, and move beyond.

But I'm in the water, too, I wanted to say. And there are plenty eyes on you. No one's watching to see if I stay afloat.

Sometimes I don't know if the fight finds me or I find the fight. Especially with my family.

When I close my eyes we're all still alive and it becomes obvious then what the gods want from us.

I wanted us together, wanted them to feel with me the big nameless thing we'd worked our way into, a silence like the presence of our own private God.

The more I understood what we were all made of, the more everyone I'd touched stayed inside me, still crying out, showing me their injuries over and over and over and over and over.

That part doesn't matter... Or it doesn't scare me. If there's something on the other side or not. It's the getting there, you know? That last minute when you're leaving, still living in this world even as it's closing up around you. You have to do that part alone.

I go itchy with want, thin on sleep. I feel her fingers in mine. The way we could be both hard and soft on each other. Her sandy voice calling out as I climb one exposed cliff after another. ... All night this all goes through me, the four hours of sleep I get.

She never said shit like this to the boys, only to me. Like I was supposed to guilty of ambition while they were just living their full potential.

But that’s the problem with the present, it’s never the thing you’re holding, only the thing you’re watching

Take a match and hold it to the strip, start the strike. Somewhere at the microscopic level there are whole worlds of hot light that gather and jump to the match tip. That’s what we were.

My time as a mother was the same as those last gasping breaths of the owl, and soon enough you’d have to gently set down my love, fold it up into the soil of your childhood, and move beyond.

But that’s the problem with the present, it’s never the thing you’re holding, only the thing you’re watching, later, from a distance so great the memory might as well be a spill of stars outside a window at twilight.

Phillip with his raging boner for the sound of his own voice, always the first to pipe up with the proposed solution.

The feeling settles. The loss becomes as much a part of me as anything.

I start talking, too fast, the words don’t touch my mind before they leave my lips,

I’ve started to enjoy these first hours the best. The air is fresh with unbreathed oxygen and my ears are stuffed with pure quiet.

I've learned that laughter is the first wall he puts up against the hurt of the world. [Malia, referring to husband Augie]

Hope can be a god as well. It’s something that can be prayed to.

You probably just finished shitting anyway," Kaui says. She hands him the thermos, "was it a soft serve morning or more like a German sausage?

Always, always boys. Whole classes, boys shaped like teddy beats or tree lizards. Always first to pull out their opinions, shove their knowledge at each other. I guess there's many ways engineering could feel but mostly it felt like any place feels where there's twenty boys and three girls. I had to go in with my back like a rod. Be the baddest both is what I said, in my head. And then did.

It’s an impossible thing to explain, motherhood. What is lost, the blood and muscle and bone that are drawn from your body to feed and breathe a new life into the world. The bulldozer of exhaustion that hits in the first trimester, the nauseous clamps of the mornings, the warping and swelling and splitting open of everything previously taut or delicate, until your body is no longer yours but something you must survive. But those are only the physical. It’s what comes after that takes more. Whatever part of me flowed into you from my body, it turned us tight into two people that shared a soul. I believe that of all my children. Fathers will never understand the way you get deep in us, so deep that there’s a part of me that remains, always, a part of you, no matter where you go.

The thought comes to me all of a sudden: -God, these men.- Why is it they always pull their hurt up inside themselves, gulp it down into the quiet corners of their soul, clench it like a muscle? [Malia]

He said people think force and power is the same thing, but really force is what you use when you don’t got power. I think about me and Noa and I’m like, I been using force my whole life. What does that make me?

Kirabo, have you ever seen God come down from heaven to make humans behave?" "No." "That is because some people have appointed themselves his police. And I tell you, child, the police are far worse than God himself.

But that's the problem with the present, it's never the thing you're holding, only the thing you're watching, later, from a distance so great the memory might as well be a spill of stars outside a window at twilight. [Nainoa]

If a god is a thing that has absolute power over us, then in this world there are many. There are gods that we choose and gods that we can’t avoid; there are gods that we pray to and gods that prey on us; there are dreams that become gods and pasts that become gods and nightmares that do, as well. As I age I learn that there are more gods than I’ll ever know, and yet I have to watch for all of them, or else they can use me or I can lose them without even realizing it.

But ships from far ports carried a new god in their bellies, a god who blew a breath of weeping blisters and fevers that torched whole generations, a god whose fingers were shaped like rifles and whose voice sounded like treaties waiting to be broken.

we’d feel the water start to bend and stand up, tugging on our board shorts, and when the wave crested and tossed its full force directly on top of us, we’d push deep and open our eyes and grin at the yawning curl of gold sand and blue ocean that couldn’t touch us.

I ask Mom if love ever made her feel alone. If it ever made her feel like she was starving in a room full of food. She laughs. 'Only every day.' She leans over to me, across the gap between us, so that the side of her head touches mine....She whispers something, but I can't hear the words. 'I never thought I'd be the type of person who would do that to someone,' I say. 'Now it's exactly what I am. Forever.' Mom nods. 'It's always like that.' 'What do you mean?' I ask. 'Whenever I've made a choice in my life, a real choice...I can always feel the change, after I choose. The better versions of myself, moving just out of reach.' It's exactly what I think. So there's nothing to say.... 'I'm always losing better versions of myself,' she says. 'I don't know. You just have to keep trying.' [Kaui, in conversation with her mother Malia]

Whatever part of me flowed into you from my body, it turned us tight into two people that shared a soul. I believe that of all my children. Fathers will never understand the way you get deep in us, so deep that there’s a part of me that remains, always, a part of you, no matter where you go.

If a god is a thing that has absolute power over us, then in this world there are many. There are gods that we choose and gods that we can't avoid; there are gods that we pray to and gods that prey on us; there are dreams that become gods and pasts that become gods and nightmares that do, as well.

Okay, there are two versions of Dad, I know there are: The one that we see now, that is something like a dream trapped in a body. And then there is the Augie that was once a cane-truck driver once a husband once a luggage handler once a father. I've seen them both since I've been home, is what I tell her.

But Noa was gone by then, anyway, or at least it felt luke that when he'd talk. Like he was back out in the ocean among the sharks, bobbing alone. I could see him there, the waves and tides and gods dragging him around. But I'm in the water too, I wanted to say. And there are plenty eyes on you. No one's watching to see if I stay afloat.

For mom, Noa was a son but he was also the legends that came with him. How those contracted everything that hurt us—the broke years, the move to the city, the shit jobs she and Dad had—into a single point of purpose. And that purpose was so big she didn't have to understand it to know she had an important part to play. Big destiny is a thing you get drunk on.

Se un dio è una cosa che ha potere assoluto su di noi, allora a questo mondo ce ne sono molti. Ci sono dèi che scegliamo e dèi che non possiamo evitare; ci sono dèi da pregare e dèi predatori, ci sono sogni che diventano dèi e passati che diventano dèi, e anche incubi che fanno lo stesso. Invecchiando imparo che ci sono più dèi di quanti ne potrò mai conoscere...

If a god is a thing that has absolute power over us, then in this world there are many. There are gods that we choose and gods that we can’t avoid; there are gods that we pray to and gods that prey on us; there are dreams that become gods and pasts that become gods and nightmares that do, as well. As I age I learn that there are more gods than I’ll ever know, and yet I have to watch for all of them, or else they can use me or I can lose them without even realizing it. Take

What do you do when pono, a healing word, a power word—a word that is emotions and relationships and objects and the past and the present and the future, a thousand prayers all at once, worth eighty-three of the words from the English (righteousness, morality, prosperity, excellence, assets, carefulness, resources, fortune, necessity, hope, and on and on)—is outlawed? When our language, ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i, was outlawed, so our gods went, so prayers went, so ideas went, so the island went.

If he created them in his own image," Nsuuta snapped, "then afterwards Adam created Eve in his own image, one that suited him." "But which image is that, Nsuuta? You will burn in her for saying things like that." "The state we are in now, the shrunken one. Kirby, all this time I have been telling you the stories ancients used to change women... In this shrunken image we are in right now, we are the creatures of men. And creatures worship their creator. But the original state in you gives us hope.

Sailboat Table (table by Quint Hankle) The Voyage of the Narwhal, by Andrea Barrett Complete Stories, by Clarice Lispector Boy Kings of Texas, by Domingo Martinez The Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline A Brief History of Seven Killings, by Marlon James There There, by Tommy Orange Citizen: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine Underland, by Robert Macfarlane The Undocumented Americans, by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio Deacon King Kong, by James McBride The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett Will and Testament, by Vigdis Hjorth Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada The Door, by Magda Svabo The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth Fates and Furies, by Lauren Groff The Overstory, by Richard Power Night Train, by Lise Erdrich Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, edited by John Freeman Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore Mongrels, by Stephen Graham Jones The Office of Historical Corrections, by Danielle Evans Tenth of December, by George Saunders Murder on the Red River, by Marcie R. Rendon Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong The Unwomanly Face of War, by Svetlana Alexievich Standard Deviation, by Katherine Heiny All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen Mean Spirit, by Linda Hogan NW, by Zadie Smith Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Firekeeper’s Daughter, by Angeline Boulley Erasure, by Percival Everett Sharks in the Time of Saviors, by Kawai Strong Washburn Heaven, by Mieko Kawakami Books for Banned Love Sea of Poppies, by Amitav Ghosh The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje Euphoria, by Lily King The Red and the Black, by Stendahl Luster, by Raven Leilani Asymmetry, by Lisa Halliday All the Pretty Horses, by Cormac McCarthy Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides The Vixen, by Francine Prose Legends of the Fall, by Jim Harrison The Winter Soldier, by Daniel Mason

I don’t think you can hear my memories, no, so this won’t be so pilau, and anyway, I like to remember. Your father gripped a small fist of my hair, the hair he loved, black and kinked with Hawai‘i, and my body began to curl into a rhythm against his pelvis, and we groaned and panted, pressed our blunt noses together, and I pulled us apart and straddled above and came back onto him and our skin was so hot I wanted to store it for all the times I’d ever felt cold, and his fingers traced my neck, his tongue my brown nipples, this gentleness that was a part of him that no one ever saw, and our sex made its sounds and we laughed a little, closing our eyes and opening them and closing them again, and the day lost its last light even as we kept on.

Fire on the Mountain, by Anita Desai Sailboat Table (table by Quint Hankle) The Voyage of the Narwhal, by Andrea Barrett Complete Stories, by Clarice Lispector Boy Kings of Texas, by Domingo Martinez The Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline A Brief History of Seven Killings, by Marlon James There There, by Tommy Orange Citizen: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine Underland, by Robert Macfarlane The Undocumented Americans, by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio Deacon King Kong, by James McBride The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett Will and Testament, by Vigdis Hjorth Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada The Door, by Magda Szabó The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth Fates and Furies, by Lauren Groff The Overstory, by Richard Power Night Train, by Lise Erdrich Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, edited by John Freeman Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore Mongrels, by Stephen Graham Jones The Office of Historical Corrections, by Danielle Evans Tenth of December, by George Saunders Murder on the Red River, by Marcie R. Rendon Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong The Unwomanly Face of War, by Svetlana Alexievich Standard Deviation, by Katherine Heiny All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen Mean Spirit, by Linda Hogan NW, by Zadie Smith Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Firekeeper’s Daughter, by Angeline Boulley Erasure, by Percival Everett Sharks in the Time of Saviors, by Kawai Strong Washburn Heaven, by Mieko Kawakami

The chanting and the singing. I know the language even if this is the first time I hear it this way, a language of righteousness and cycles, giving and taking, aloha in the rawest form. Pure love.

Sailboat Table (table by Quint Hankle) The Voyage of the Narwhal, by Andrea Barrett Complete Stories, by Clarice Lispector Boy Kings of Texas, by Domingo Martinez The Marrow Thieves, by Cherie Dimaline A Brief History of Seven Killings, by Marlon James There There, by Tommy Orange Citizen: An American Lyric, by Claudia Rankine Underland, by Robert Macfarlane The Undocumented Americans, by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio Deacon King Kong, by James McBride The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett Will and Testament, by Vigdis Hjorth Every Man Dies Alone, by Hans Fallada The Door, by Magda Svabo The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth Fates and Furies, by Lauren Groff The Overstory, by Richard Power Night Train, by Lise Erdrich Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story, edited by John Freeman Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates Birds of America, by Lorrie Moore Mongrels, by Stephen Graham Jones The Office of Historical Corrections, by Danielle Evans Tenth of December, by George Saunders Murder on the Red River, by Marcie R. Rendon Leave the World Behind, by Rumaan Alam Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong The Unwomanly Face of War, by Svetlana Alexievich Standard Deviation, by Katherine Heiny All My Puny Sorrows, by Miriam Toews The Death of the Heart, by Elizabeth Bowen Mean Spirit, by Linda Hogan NW, by Zadie Smith Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Firekeeper’s Daughter, by Angeline Boulley Erasure, by Percival Everett Sharks in the Time of Saviors, by Kawai Strong Washburn Heaven, by Mieko Kawakami