old people Quotes

“The path ran up a hill. ‘Seem like there is chains about my feet time, I get this far,’ she said, in a voice of argument old people keep to use with themselves. ‘Something always take a hold of me on this hill—pleads I should stay.‘”

“At the foot of this hill was the place where a log was laid across the creek. ‘Now comes the trial,’ said Phoenix. Putting her right foot out, she mounted the log and shut her eyes. Lifting her skirt, leveling her cane fiercely before her like a festival figure in some parade, she began to march across. Then she opened her eyes and she was safe on the other side.

″‘Glad this not the season for bulls,’ she said, looking sideways, ‘and the good Lord made his snakes to curl up and sleep in the winter. A pleasure I don’t see no two-headed snake coming around that tree, where it come once. It took a while to get by him, back in the summer.‘”

“Her fingers were busy and intent, but her skirts were full and long, so that before she could pull them free in one place they were caught in another. It was not possible to allow the dress to tear. ‘I in the thorny bush,’ she said. ‘Thorns, you doing your appointed work. Never want to let folks pass—no, sir. Old eyes thought you was a pretty little green bush.‘”

“There was something tall, black, and skinny there, moving before her. At first she took it for a man. It could have been a man dancing in the field. But she stood still and listened, and it did not make a sound. It was as silent as a ghost. ‘Ghost,’ she said sharply, ‘who be you the ghost of? For I have heard of nary death close by.‘”

“There are certain narrow, unimaginative, and autocratic old people who seem to call out the most mischievous and sometimes the worst traits in children.”

“I know those old people sent her to protect my spirit. They do that sort of thing. She came to me just when I needed her. She stays with me all through the dark nights. I don’t have to worry about squishing her in bed ‘cause she knows which way I’m gonna roll even before I do.”

“A frog! A little, green, tree frog. A beautiful little girragundji. ‘Where did you come from?’ I’m breathing again. I’m gonna live. ‘Where you come from, little fulla?’ Maybe them old people did hear me. Maybe the rain pouring down and the water coming up under our house scared this little one.”