Demon Copperhead: A Novel

Loser is a cliff. Once you’ve gone over, you’re over.

The moral of his story was how you never know the size of hurt that’s in people’s hearts, or what they’re liable to do about it, given the chance.

As long as you haven’t yet asked, you can still have another day with some answer in your head other than “Go fuck yourself.”

Topic sentences, Appomattox Courthouse, life cycle of a plant, what is all that? If all your brain wants to know is, where’s the door out of here and wherever it goes, will you still be starving.

We were all, Merry Christmas Mrs. Gummidge! And she’s like, “Well, it might be, I don’t know. I been feeling so poorly.”

You tell me why it makes sense for guys wanting money from you to come and take your car, so you can’t earn another dime. That’s the grown-up version I guess of teachers yelling at you for hating school.

I was born to wish for more than I can have. No little fishing hole for Demon, he wants the whole ocean. And on from there, as regards the man-overboard. I came late to getting my brain around the problem of me, and still yet might not have. The telling of this tale is supposed to make it come clear.

you think a mother is a hard rock to run up against, try pushing back on a dead one.

If you’re standing on a small pile of shit, fighting for your one place to stand, God almighty how you fight.