Jo Sinclair Quotes

It was as if he insisted, time after time, that she could be only a body. Why couldn't he see her shy heart, her eager studying mind? Why couldn't her delicate ways of help flow gently into his way?-not the sickeningly sudden grab, the (book 1 chapter 9)

The word Depression faded from the American air, but in her it would never fade completely, she knew that. (chapter Five, p177)

In the darkness, he found her and it was as if the discovery encompassed him at the same time. She was in a secret forest-place of night, where no pain could enter. His body, his lips and hands, made gleams of light by which she could read at last all the answers to hunger. (book 3 chapter 6)

It was Saturday again. Today he was eager to be here. Already he shared with the walls of this office the intimacy of secrets released, the wonderful freedom of shame and pain eased, even the inch of secret, the first few stumbling steps of ease. (Chapter Three, p77)

For a second of intense hurt, she remembered all the fires, all the joy of those yesterdays which had merged so quickly. There had never been a calendar to life; excitement and fun had been timeless. Every day had been the present, fast and dangerous, the never-ending moment of leadership. (chapter 8, p127)

The same liquor, the same scar tissue, the same fear-sound of [his] cough flying into the Ballroom: for [her], everything had seemed reiteration out of the ghostly series of yesterdays. Only she was different. Everything seemed blurred and unformed wood, only she chiseled out into actuality, the need of body, the lips shaped to the sound of longing.( p261)

The big desk was somewhat like a bridge between the doctor and him; at one end the doctor sat, and here at this end he sat, waiting for the moment when he could take a few further awkward steps upon that bridge into understanding, into reasoning. (Chapter Three, p77)

His own suffering, preceding the similar experiences of his nephews, makes him unwilling to face the idea of progeny. He is afraid of the continued perpetuation of "wasteland," and yet he now tries courageously to discover the truth of that condition, the source of it, perhaps the cure.... (chapter Five, p194)

All that summer, as no white people came to rent the empty, upstairs suites of the Valenti house or the Golden house, tension had mounted in the street. Only Negroes came. (first lines)

The first spring after the death is unbearable. Its inexorable, complete awakening. Its compulsive memories. Its intolerable mockery of beauty.

...How could anything as delicate as love turn into the harsh accusation of [his] eyes? (book 3 chapter 11)

[He] could not move for a while. When at last he went to put the last gate up over the door and to snap shut the locks, a confusion of walls and gates and locks swirled through his head. Don't make a wall in my head, he thought tremblingly. That's all I ask. Please! (chapter 6, p110)

...only the screaming came out, no words, just the sounds of loneliness and fear (book 1 chapter 1)

Obstacles which have kept him from complete participation have been dissolved. At this year's ceremony, he can recognize without bitterness what is there for him, as well as what can never be there. Recognizing the inadequacies, he knows he need not be hurt by them.... (Chapter Eleven, p334)

"Listen to her," [he] said. "A voice like iron. That one will never rent or sell to them. They are more her enemy than ours, even. Remember...even an Italian has his Hitler." (chapter 3, p43)