Amanda Kyle Williams > Quotes

“You learn to forgive (the South) for its narrow mind and growing pains because it has a huge heart. You forgive the stifling summers because the spring is lush and pastel sprinkled, because winter is merciful and brief, because corn bread and sweet tea and fried chicken are every bit as vital to a Sunday as getting dressed up for church, and because any southerner worth their salt says please and thank you. It's soft air and summer vines, pine woods and fat homegrown tomatoes. It's pulling the fruit right off a peach tree and letting the juice run down your chin. It's a closeted and profound appreciation for our neighbors in Alabama who bear the brunt of the Bubba jokes. The South gets in your blood and nose and skin bone-deep. I am less a part of the South than it is part of me. It's a romantic notion, being overcome by geography. But we are all a little starry-eyed down here. We're Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara and Rosa Parks all at once.”
― Amanda Kyle Williams

“Sometimes you only get one chance at something. Sometimes that's a good thing too. When that door slams shut on the thing you couldn't live without, what happens next is when the read education begins. You have to figure out how to make some peace with it all, how to have an interior life you can live with. Digging down deep is really never a bad thing in the end, but it will flat-out kick your ass while it's happening.”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, The Stranger You Seek

“Damn fool," Mother whispered, and covered her face with her hands. "It's not enough that he spells out Leon on the roof every year in Christmas lights. Now this!"
My father was dyslexic but would not admit it.”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, The Stranger You Seek

“.. I needed to hire someone to manage all this, but I dreaded it. It's not like you just hire one person. You hire their family and their problems, their illnesses and financial issues and weird habits and friends. You're forced to share a bathroom with them. It's like sleeping with someone without the benefits.”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, The Stranger You Seek

“Diane laughed. "Still serious, but did I mention I'm seeing a woman?"
"Um, no. You left that part out." I had known Diane since we were kids. I never had an inkling she was attracted to women. It wasn't exactly like hearing that Michael Jackson had died, but it did prove that you absolutely never know who is going to pop out of the closet and shock the shit out of you.”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, The Stranger You Seek

“I checked my reflection. Not bad - Ralph Lauren in banker blue, professional, with a crisp white shirt. It probably wouldn't get me a date, but it said that I care, that I am serious about my work, and that I'm not interested in competing with my clients. The shoes, however, probably said more to me than about me. Right now they were saying, Hey, you up there. You're going to have to skip some things this month. Okay, so I spend a little too extravagantly on shoes now and then, but I know people who spend thousands each month on cocaine, so comparatively speaking, it really isn't that big a deal.”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, The Stranger You Seek

“Hey." I twisted my wrist free. "I'm just the messenger here, pal. You knew this was coming. Your pastor made the arrangements. I don't think a big ole scene in church is going to help your case."
"You know why that bitch lawyer and the pastor wanted us to meet in church?" LaBreque asked. "So I wouldn't be tempted to cut your Chink ass into little pieces and stuff you in the fucking sewer."
Oh boy.
That was my morning. Maybe later I could poke myself in the eye three or four hundred times just for fun.”
― amanda kyle williams, The Stranger You Seek

“From the time she was a little biddy thing I always told her: Melinda, don’t talk to strangers. But she loved everyone. She was a real good girl.”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, Don't Talk to Strangers

“and”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, Don't Talk to Strangers

“hold one another close …” I eased through the throng of candlelit faces as the minister quoted scripture and talked about the”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, Don't Talk to Strangers

“went to the window off the porch, and I saw”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, Stranger in the Room

“interrupted, straightening a stack of papers on her desk, then handing the papers to Diane. “That will be all.” “Of course,” Diane said with a smile. I watched her leave, then looked back at Margaret. “So he shot him twenty-three times with a Glock nine? He”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, The Stranger You Seek

“You know how sporting events are. No one questions grown-ups hanging around. It's a pedophile picnic."
Rauser glanced over at me as we walked back to the car. "That's how you see kids and sports?"
"You know me. Ray of sunshine.”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, Stranger in the Room

“She’d decided a stranger had walked into the community and violated it, sliced into her world, taken her child away from her. Too much faith had been shattered already for Molly Cochran to allow for the possibility that it wasn’t a stranger at all who’d abducted and murdered her child.”
― Amanda Kyle Williams, Don't Talk to Strangers