Tampa Alissa Nutting Quotes

I found that sometimes it was a relief to do something unattractive in private, to confirm that I’m deeply flawed when so many others imagine me to be perfect. People are often startled by my handwriting; because I’m pretty, they assume everything I do is pretty. It’s odd to them that I write like I have a hook for an arm, just as Ford would be startled to learn I have a hook for a heart.

His eyes took in the details of my body with a conflicted gaze that I knew well: even having seen all the facts of the case, he still wanted me. He wanted me despite knowing what that meant about him.

There was something repulsive (and revealing) about talking on a cell phone while handling garbage. Why did anyone pretend human relationships had value?

Like most pronounced flaws, it did not live in isolation.

My attorney rubbed his hand across his mustache and the corners of his lips several times, as though the allegation was a piece of cake he’d just eaten that had deposited crumbs all over his mouth.

ennui

Sex struck me as a seafood with the shortest imaginable shelf life needing to be peeled and eaten the moment the urge ripened.

The numbers could never be as favorable as they were right now, when his naiveté would be subtracted from my expertise to produce the largest sum of astonishment possible.

He seemed to understand that resolution didn’t need to have anything to do with truth, and to choose a sense of harmony over insight every time. I

...occasionally some of the mothers did see fit to bring their young children along to practice the valuable life skill of standing on the side of the road with indignation.

Or perhaps he was skilled at foreshadowing. I’d imagine a pious avoidance of sin requires that.

Despite being told he could step down, Jack stayed for a moment,crying, then looked over at me. It wasn't at all the look of hatred I'd expected. Instead it was a look of mutual knowledge, Jack conveying to me his new understanding that the world could be a terrible place. His eyes said that no one at all was looking out for him or able to fix this essential flaw in life's fabric; my eyes stared back and told him that he was right.

The screams echoing through Janet's class were hard to bear. She was attempting a lecture on the Treaty of Paris while Mrs. Pachenko walked between the rows of desks insisting upon calm, raising a finger to her lips and whispering to individual students to please sit all the way down in their desks. In the back of the of the room, several kids were cheering as one of them, a young man whose shirt bore a flaming skull, stood hunched atop his desk like a motocross biker, sliding it forward in small hops. Students appear enthusiastic and are communicating well together, I wrote on the evaluation form.

I won't tell," he said, his arms holding my waist with amateur stiffness. I smiled, thinking about the lover he'd become and all the things he'd try with me for the very first time. I'd be the sexual yardstick for his whole life: Jack would spend the rest of his days trying but failing to relive the experience of being given everything at a time when he knew nothing. Like a tollbooth in his memory, every partner he'd have afterwards would have to pass through the gate of my comparison, and it would be a losing equation. The numbers could never be as favorable as they were right now, when his naivety would be subtracted from my experience to produce the largest sum of astonishment possible.

Janet stood and began a wide navigation of turning one hundred and eighty degrees to enter her vehicle, her slow toddles calling to mind a sleepwalking badger. Her weak forearms often came alive to shoo away invisible hindrances, pawing the air with disgruntled choler. Before beginning the climb up the van’s two carpeted steps, the most athletic portion of her adieu, she unceremoniously dropped her cigarette butt to the ground without extinguishing it. I got the feeling she hoped it might roll beneath the vehicle’s gas tank and give her a true Viking burial.

it’s nice, just for the present, to not have to do anything that repulses me other than live in squalor.

You will go home and snort a small amount of the cocaine you keep in the Altoids tin in your pajama drawer. You will robotically fuck your husband until your box feels like a gaping wound. You will be so aggressive that he will be frightened, and his fear will keep you from being completely repulsed by him.

Oh my God—you’re a soulless pervert!

Outside, a car drove by with its stereo jovially blaring; its vibrations shook the windows in Jack’s bedroom. I couldn’t help but feel like Buck’s death had made the whole world seem a bit younger.

I smiled as our hands pressed against one another in midair, as though we were pretending to touch through invisible glass. We managed a long stare before Jack finally blushed, retracting his hands. “How old are you, Jack Patrick?” “I turned fourteen this summer,” he said. I gave an impressed nod, indicating this was no small accomplishment. “Well you’re certainly old enough to know what you like.” Principal Deegan’s first-day speech came back to mind; I had to bite my lip not to jokingly add in, Am I right? “Here, let me give you some examples. Do you like it when girls wear lipstick?” He blushed and nodded. “Yeah.” His voice had an embarrassed tone, like he’d just made a vile confession. “Good—do you like lighter lipstick? Darker lipstick? Red?” I wanted to grab his hand again. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to slide my fingers beneath the desk and touch the bare skin of his leg. “Um,” he said. His hand began to scratch at his scalp. “Wait,” I said. “I have an idea.” I walked up to my desk and grabbed my purse and a box of Kleenex. “So what I’m wearing now is called fuchsia. Kind of a bright pink.” I sat and wiped it off, then took the fuchsia tube of lipstick out of my purse along with two others. “Okay, ready?” He nodded with sudden animation—we were about to play a game.

– Mi ami? – chiese. Dopo che la domanda non ebbe ottenuto risposta, cominciò a cercare un premio di consolazione. – C’è una parte di te che mi ha mai amato? – Non mi dava fastidio la rabbia, ma la sua espressione stava diventando offensiva e mi dava il voltastomaco. La sua pena sembrava cosí intima, privata e unica, non diversa da un escremento, qualcosa con cui avere a che fare da soli. Ma lui era lí che me la scodellava davanti e me la faceva annusare.

If it were an island of girls they would’ve cannibalized each other in days.

Stained red from candy canes, the students’ tongues appeared to have been dyed by communal blood in a satanic cult ceremony.

Live in your skin instead of your brain.

Frank was a hopeless dork with the haircut of a fourth grader;

He seemed to understand that resolution didn’t need to have anything to do with truth, and to choose a sense of harmony over insight every time.

pristine, like inner meat,

It’s true, I thought; the adult world has so much less to offer than adolescence does.

It’s true, I thought; the adult world has so much less to offer than adolescence does. It seemed to me that the happiest possible ending to the movie would be both teams playing impeccably and tying at the end of the fourth quarter, then the entire stadium being blown up by terrorists and their young lives ending on a high.

It’s not psycho,” another said, “unless you actually do it.

Even though this was now routine, returning home to the sight of eight squad cars parked in our driveway still caused me to feel an instant and roiling vertigo; a few months ago I’d nearly swerved off the road and clipped a fire hydrant when I saw them all there. My immediate thought was always that my Internet search history had been discovered,

But I felt it to be a simple irony: in my view, having sex with teenagers was the only way to keep the act wholesome.

People who look like me don’t go to jail.

Ford, like the husbands of most women who marry for money, is far too old. Since I’m twenty-six myself, it’s true that he and I are close peers. But thirty-one is roughly seventeen years past my window of sexual interest.

They were at the beginning of their sexual lives with no need to hurry—whenever they were ready, a great range of attractions would be waiting for them, easy and disposable. Their urges would grow up right alongside them like a shadow. They’d never feel their libido a deformed thing to be kept chained up in the attic of their mind and to only be fed in secret after dark.

Their queen lives for six or seven years, but the male drones only live four to five days. Their sole purpose in life is to mate with her and then die.” I couldn’t help but imagine an equally preferential scenario played out by several fourteen-year-old boys and myself.

Now that I might have him again, it seemed I hadn’t had him at all...

After a certain point, any detail, like the woman’s cheerleader hairstyle, that implied youth simply looked ridiculous.

Their queen lives for six or seven years, but the male drones only live four to five days. Their sole purpose in life is to mate with her and then die.” I couldn’t help imagine an equally preferential scenario played out by several fourteen-year-old boys and myself.

His eyes took in the details of my body with a conflicted gaze I knew well: even having seen all the facts of the case, he wanted me. He wanted me despite knowing what that meant about him.

Jack stayed for a moment, crying, then looked over at me. It wasn’t at all a look of hatred I’d expected. Instead it was a look of mutual knowledge, Jack conveying to me his new understanding that the world could be a terrible place. His eyes said that no one at all was looking out for him or able to fix this essential flaw in life’s fabric; my eyes stared back and told him that he was right.

I have a near-photographic recall of my good times with Jack and Boyd and still think of them often, exactly how they were when they entered my classroom.

I found that sometimes it was a relief to do something unattractive in private, to confirm that I’m deeply flawed when so many others imagine me to be perfect. People are often startled by my handwriting; because I’m pretty, they assume everything I do is pretty.

This made me wonder—if things did all fall apart today, had Jack made the jail time worth it for me? He had done everything I’d wanted him to do, and as far as I knew had kept quiet. But no memory seemed enough to adequately sustain me through a boy-less incarceration.

My own arousal was based on the juxtaposition of Jack’s long-standing innocence and budding carnality. If Jack’s requests began to grow more adult and lurid, the effect would be just as offensive to me as his body maturing.

Jack stayed for a moment, crying, then looked over at me. It wasn’t at all the look of hatred I’d expected. Instead it was a look of mutual knowledge, Jack conveying to me his new understanding that the world could be a terrible place. His eyes said that no one at all was looking out for him or able to fix this essential flaw in life’s fabric; my eyes stared back and told him that he was right.

deciding between the two of them was like being asked to pick a dance partner and given the option of a trained choreographer or an epileptic with a wooden leg.

It was hard not to laugh. Sure, Buck seemed a comfortable level of middle-class, but dating him in exchange for gifts wouldn’t qualify as gold-digging; it would be more like panning for nuggets.

I also had the fear that with the right photographer, the real me might accidentally be captured—that in looking at the photo, suddenly everyone’s eyes would widen and they’d actually see me for the very first time: Oh my God—you’re a soulless pervert!

After a decade of hiding my urges, I’ll admit it wasn’t easy to come to terms with the fact that my preference had been publicly outed. It was as though in merely following my own desire I’d been catapulted far beyond the intended lands of pleasure into a realm of punishment.

pain seemed like such an internal, private thing, no different from excrement

Like most women who marry for money, my husband is far too old. Being twenty-six myself, it’s true that he and I are close peers. But thirty-one is roughly seventeen years past my window of sexual interest.

She coughed and let out a low, round fart that she didn’t acknowledge.

The soul had always struck me as being a tricky thing to keep with the body: an easily bored aristocrat with the means to leave whenever it wished.

see, even in the darkest room? Sex struck me as a seafood with the shortest imaginable shelf life, needing to be peeled and eaten the moment the urge ripened.

(Yes, Heath, that’s very perceptive—we could in fact blame Romeo and Juliet’s parents!)

At times, I wished that my genitals were prosthetic, something I could slip out of. They were a constant drone of stimulation; their requests hummed aloud throughout my life like a never-ending soundtrack.

I clumsily extracted the showerhead from its holder and guided it between my legs, the same way one would put on an oxygen mask that dropped from the plane’s ceiling due to an ominous change in cabin pressure, feeling nothing but a frightened hope for survival.

he had to be convinced that I was more like him than like his mother.

But he’d just orgasmed, which meant my power over him was at its lowest—he didn’t want to stop gazing in his crystal ball just yet.

But thirty-one is roughly seventeen years past my window of sexual interest.

Were there souls left inside these women? It seemed doubtful. The soul had always struck me as being a tricky thing to keep with the body: an easily bored aristocrat with the means to leave whenever it wished. What temptations, what vistas were their lives of folding socks and online diet-plan message boards offering? The goosey flesh of their limbs was not in rhythm. What facile cages for a spirit hell-bent on sneaking out, the bodies of these women

At dinner I began to sit with my legs clenched painfully together for fear that if I opened them even the slightest bit, it might unleash a shrill wail that would shatter the crystal wineglasses.

The older I became, the harder it would be to get what I wanted, but that was probably true of everyone with everything.

Attraction creates powerful feelings. It overrules intellect.

He seemed to understand that resolution didn't need to have anything to do with truth, and to choose a sense of harmony over insight every time.

How appropriate; you are foul to me and I just wallpapered my cervix with the name of a teenage boy.