Spoonbenders Quotes

“The problem with getting old was that each day had to compete with the thousands of others gone by. How wonderful would a day have to be to win such a beauty contest? To even make it into the finals? Never mind that memory rigged the game, airbrushed the flaws from its contestants, while the present had to shuffle into the spotlight unaided, all pockmarked with mundanities and baggy with annoyances.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“Duty eats free will for breakfast.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“The business travelers, however, were all business, from their business jacket to their business skirts and their skinny business shoes. They sliced through the crowd of civilians like business sharks”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“I haven’t used my dick in so long I wouldn’t know where to find it. I sent it out for a pack of Camels in 1979 and it never came back.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“He lit the cigarette and inhaled gratefully.

"You want one?"

"No thanks. Had a touch of the cancer a few years ago."

"What kind?"

"Prostate."

"I'm not asking you to smoke it in your ass.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“Then they were off again, across the unbroken sprawl of Chicagoland, a single city made up of interlocking strip malls, decorated at random intervals by WELCOME TO signs with defiantly rural names—River Forest, Forest Glen, Glenview—and enough dales and groves and elms and oaks to populate Middle Earth. The flatlanders had been especially determined to tag every bump of land with a “Heights” or “Ridge.” Pity the poor hobbit trying to find anything to climb in the town of Mount Prospect.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“New love walks up and slaps you on the butt, demands your attention, gets your pulse racing. Old love lies in wait. It’s there in the evening when your eyes are closing. It slides into bed beside you, runs its ghost fingers through your hair, whispers your secret name. Old love is never gone.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“Graciella’s frown was there and gone in an instant. He didn’t know how to interpret that. If they were playing poker, it would have telegraphed that she’d picked a bad card, and he would have bet against her. But in the game of Real Women, he was forever a novice.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“It was as if someone had thrown a bucket of paint into his face, and the shade was named Blinding Pain.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“The thing about skeletons was, you never knew how much space they were taking up in the closet until you got rid of them.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“You know why I’m raising you kids to be Cubs fans?” Buddy shakes his head. “Any mook can be a fan of a winning team,” Dad says. “It takes character to root for the doomed. You show up, you watch your boys take their swings, and you watch ’em go down in flames—every damn day. You think Jack Brickhouse is an optimist? No-siree. He may sound happy, but he’s dying inside. There’s no seat in Wrigley Field for a God damn Pollyanna. You root-root-root for the home team, and they lose anyway. It teaches you how the world works, kid. Sure, start every spring with your hopes and dreams, but in the universe in which we live, you will be mathematically eliminated by Labor Day. Count on it.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“The problem with getting old was that each day had to compete with the thousands of others gone by. How wonderful would a day have to be to win such a beauty contest?”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“They piled into Irene's Festiva, a car that won the award for most ironic distance between name and driving experience.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“Smocks were the official uniform of those hanging on to the bottom rungs of the economic ladder; a parachute that would never open.”
― daryl gregory, Spoonbenders

“It was like wandering her house, except that everything was bright and blinking and pixelated.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“Mayor Bilandic had lost the ’79 election not because he failed to clean up the snow after those storms, but because he looked like a wimp apologizing for it, while Jane Byrne was clearly the toughest, most unapologetic woman in Chicago. (“You know how sometimes it gets too cold to snow? That was Jane Byrne’s face.”)”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“Poor bastard. Literally. His mom was broke, and his dad had abandoned the family years ago.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“Eight-year-olds playing soccer, Teddy decided, was a lot like a pack of border collies chasing a single sheep, except that the dogs would’ve used more teamwork.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“A newcomer to the scam biz might suppose that scientists were the hardest to fool, but the opposite was true. Each letter after a name imparted a dose of misapplied confidence. PhDs believed that expertise in one field—say, neuroscience—made them generally smarter in all fields. Belief that one was hard to fool was the one quality shared by all suckers. And if the suckers wanted the results you were giving ’em—if they were already imagining the publications and fame that would come from proving psychic abilities were true?”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“We’ve been given our own funding line, and an official code name. As of today, we are Aqueduct Anvil.” “Wow!” Jones said. “What does it mean?” “It doesn’t mean anything,” Smalls said. “It was next in the book.” “What book?” “The book of available code names.” “You have a book of pre-generated code names?” Teddy asked. “If you don’t, then everybody picks names like ‘Thunder Strike.’ In other news—” Teddy raised his hand. “Can I tell people I’m in AA?” he asked innocently.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“There’s no seat in Wrigley Field for a God damn Pollyanna. You root-root-root for the home team, and they lose anyway. It teaches you how the world works, kid. Sure, start every spring with your hopes and dreams, but in the universe in which we live, you will be mathematically eliminated by Labor Day. Count on it.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“As of today, we are Aqueduct Anvil.” “Wow!” Jones said. “What does it mean?” “It doesn’t mean anything,” Smalls said. “It was next in the book.” “What book?” “The book of available code names.” “You have a book of pre-generated code names?” Teddy asked. “If you don’t, then everybody picks names like ‘Thunder Strike.’ In other news—” Teddy raised his hand. “Can I tell people I’m in AA?” he asked innocently.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“Embrace mediocrity,” Teddy said. “That’s my advice to you, my friend. Lower the bar. Accept the C-minus. Give up on the rib eye and order the hamburger.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“In Chicago,” she said, “meat is a condiment.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“a lateral move: out of the frying pan and into the frying pan.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“It takes character to root for the doomed.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“The décor was Late-Period Dump: ripped-vinyl booths, neon Old Style signs, veneer tabletops, black-speckled linoleum in which 80 percent of the specks weren’t. The kind of place that was vastly improved by dim lighting and alcoholic impairment. Frankie loved it. “Your grandpa used to bring me here,” Frankie said to Matty. “This is where real men drink.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“It had been four years since he’d seen the government agent, but he looked like he’d aged twice that. A bad patch. That’s the way it happened. A body could hold the line for a decade, one Christmas photo just like the ten previous, then bam, the years zoomed up and flattened you like a Mack truck. The last of the man’s football-hero good looks had been swallowed by age and carbohydrates. Now he was a blocky head on a big rectangular body, like a microwave atop a refrigerator.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“Festiva, a car that won the award for most ironic distance between name and driving experience.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders

“Buddy sought out Irene’s eyes with a classic Buddy look: mystified and sorrowful, like a cocker spaniel who’d finally eviscerated his great enemy, only to find everyone angry and taking the side of the couch pillow.”
― Daryl Gregory, Spoonbenders