City of the Beasts Quotes

″‘Kate is quite capable of pushing me into a river hill filled with piranhas,’ Alex blurted out. ‘With a grandmother like mine, I don’t need enemies.‘”

“Alex had realized during those months how enormous their mother’s presence had been and how painful her absence was now.”

“You’re going to have to be flexible, Alexander. Our family is going through a real crisis. In the Chinese language, do you know what the characters for ‘crisis’ are? ‘Danger’ plus ‘opportunity’. Maybe your mother’s illness will offer you an extraordinary opportunity.”

“He had to stay in bed for the next two days, as green as a lizard and convinced that he would die if nausea and the pain in his head. His father thought he had a virus, and his mother immediately suspected her mother-in-law but didn’t dare accuse her of poisoning her only grandson.”

“In the center of the room was his mother, barefoot and in her nightgown, sitting on a small stool with her face in her hands, crying. His father, standing behind her, was holding an old straight razor that had belonged to Alex’s grandfather. Long clumps of black hair littered the floor...”

“It’s much more difficult for Lisa than for any of us. Alexander. We have to be strong, the way she is.”

“For a long time, he leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, trying to control the hurricane of feelings that shook him to his marrow.”

″‘Alone?’ ‘Alone. I’m afraid that from here on you will have to do a lot of things alone. Take your passport, because I think you’re going on an adventure with my mother.‘”

“Up until a couple months ago, Alex had been happy. He had never felt any great curiosity to explore beyond the safe boundaries of his own existence;”

“Truth was, the only thing he wanted was to go back to the kind of life he’d had a few months before, when his mother was well. He didn’t want to go to the Amazon with Kate. He was a little afraid of his grandmother.”