Houston Quotes

“He wrapped his hand around hers, pressed a kiss to the heart of her palm, and held her gaze. “I’ve got a one-room cabin, a few horses, and a dream that’s so small it won’t even cover your palm. But it sure seems a lot bigger when you’re beside me.”

The moonlight streaming through the window shimmered off the tears trailing along her cheeks. “I’ve always wanted a dream that I could hold in the palm of my hand,” she said quietly.

-Houston and Amelia”
― Lorraine Heath, Texas Destiny

“Austin stood. “All right, I will.” He walked to the door and stopped, his hand on the latch. He gazed back over his shoulder. “That woman you love . . . Do I know her?”

Houston forced himself to meet his brother’s gaze. The boy only knew one woman, if he didn’t count the whores in Dusty Flats. “Yeah, you do.”

“She never left your side, not for one minute.”

“She should have.”

“Well, I’m not learned in these matters, but I’d like to think if a woman ever loved me as much as that one loves you ... I’d crawl through hell to be by her side.”
― Lorraine Heath, Texas Destiny

“Maybe in time, once your feelings for Dee deepen—"

"That's my problem, Houston. I think I've fallen in love with her and I've got no earthly idea how to make her love me."

-Dallas and Houston”
― Lorraine Heath, Texas Glory

“She read beautifully, deeply. I don't know how else to describe it.
Eventually, I finally asked her what she got out of reading these books by old dead men, what the words on the page had to do with her. The kind of question an idiot asks. But she took it seriously, she pursed her lips.
It's just another way to talk to the dead, she said.
It's another way to make a way, she said.”
― Bryan Washington, Lot

“I went to the room in Great Jones Street, a small crooked room, cold as a penny, looking out on warehouses, trucks and rubble. There was snow on the windowledge. Some rags and an unloved ruffled shirt of mine had been stuffed into places where the window frame was warped and cold air entered. The refrigerator was unplugged, full of record albums, tapes, and old magazines. I went to the sink and turned on both taps all the way, drawing an intermittent trickle. Least is best. I tried the radio, picking up AM only at the top of the dial, FM not at all."

The industrial loft buildings along Great Jones seemed misproportioned, broad structures half as tall as they should have been, as if deprived of light by the great skyscraper ranges to the north and south."

Transparanoia owns this building," he said.

She wanted to be lead singer in a coke-snorting hard-rock band but was prepared to be content beating a tambourine at studio parties. Her mind was exceptional, a fact she preferred to ignore. All she desired was the brute electricity of that sound. To make the men who made it. To keep moving. To forget everything. To be that sound. That was the only tide she heeded. She wanted to exist as music does, nowhere, beyond maps of language. Opal knew almost every important figure in the business, in the culture, in the various subcultures. But she had no talent as a performer, not the slightest, and so drifted along the jet trajectories from band to band, keeping near the fervers of her love, that obliterating sound, until we met eventually in Mexico, in somebody's sister's bed, where the tiny surprise of her name, dropping like a pebble on chrome, brought our incoherent night to proper conclusion, the first of all the rest, transactions in reciprocal tourism.
She was beautiful in a neutral way, emitting no light, defining herself in terms of attrition, a skinny thing, near blond, far beyond recall from the hard-edged rhythms of her life, Southwestern woman, hard to remember and forget...There was never a moment between us that did not measure the extent of our true connection. To go harder, take more, die first.”
― Don DeLillo, Great Jones Street

“He skidded to a dead halt and stared hard at Austin. The boy’s chin carried so many nicks from his first shave that it was a wonder he hadn’t bled to death. He was a year older than Houston had been when he’d last stood on a battlefield. Sweet Lord, Houston had never had the opportunity to shave his whole face; he’d never flirted with girls, wooed women, or danced through the night. He’d never loved.

Not until Amelia.

And he’d given her up because he’d thought it was best for her. Because he had nothing to offer her but a one-roomed log cabin, a few horses, a dream so small that it wouldn’t cover the palm of her hand.

And his heart. His wounded heart.”
― Lorraine Heath, Texas Destiny

“She described to us six lanes' worth of unadulterated fear, populated exclusively by motorists whose driving education had been paid for by the blood of pedestrians.”
― Jeff Deck, The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time

“He pulled her mirror out of his other pocket. “You left your mirror on my table.” He extended it toward her.

“You can keep it,” she said quietly. “We have lots of mirrors here.”

“I’ll keep it, then.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

He’d never rushed headlong into a battle, but he figured this time, it might be the best approach. “I spent a lot of time studying it. The back is real pretty with all the gold carving. Took me about an hour to gather up the courage to turn it over and look at the other side.”

“And what did you see?”

“ Aman who loves you more than life itself.”

Closing her eyes, she dropped her chin to her chest.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me. I haven’t held your feelings as precious as I should have.”

“I don’t hate you,” she whispered hoarsely. “I tried to, but I can’t.”

-Houston and Amelia”
― Lorraine Heath, Texas Destiny

“You loved her, but you let her marry some other fella? Why’d you do a fool thing like that?”

“Because it was best for her.”

“How do you know it was best for her?”

Houston swiveled his head and captured his brother’s gaze. “What?”

Austin shrugged. “What if what you thought was best for her wasn’t what she wanted?”

“What are you talking about?”

Austin slid his backside across the porch. “I’m not learned in these matters so I don’t understand how you know what you did was best for her.”

-Houston and Austin”
― Lorraine Heath, Texas Destiny

“Her delicate brows drew together. “As a rancher, surely he knows how to ride a horse.”

“He can ride just fine. He took it into his head that he could break this rangy mustang, and it broke him instead.”

-Houston and Amelia”
― Lorraine Heath, Texas Destiny

“Houston stretches out before us, a modern goddess, bruised by not defeated.”
― Julia Heaberlin, Paper Ghosts

“New York is a granite beehive, where people jostle and whir like molecules in an overheated jar. Houston is six suburbs in search of a center.”
― Nigel Goslin

“I never understood a lot of things less complicated than why people put up with each other."
-- Songs From Richmond Avenue”
― Michael Reed, Songs From Richmond Avenue

“My guess is her attraction to him was his power in the one universe in Houston she and Gary knew: Walker & Travis.”
― Marc Grossberg, The Best People: A Tale of Trials and Errors

“You may not like what I'm saying, but the cops and these people have a sort of code. So long as the rich and powerful don't go overboard, cops give them the slack that people who live in the barrios or Third Ward or the trailer parks don't get”
― Marc Grossberg, The Best People: A Tale of Trials and Errors

“You're lucky you chose Houston. It's a true meritocracy here. I'm from Dallas, which is more closed. Houston is wide open. Here, you work hard, you succeed. It doesn't matter who your parents or grandparents were. Nearly all doors are open. If one isn't, you build your own door and march right through it.”
― Marc Grossberg, The Best People: A Tale of Trials and Errors

“They passed a table with five women. Margot waved but didn't stop to chat. "They look alike. Are they sisters?" "No. they just go to the same plastic surgeon," she deadpanned.”
― Marc Grossberg, The Best People: A Tale of Trials and Errors

“How was Houston?" I asked as he set me down.
Dad's warm brown eyes crinkled with his smile. "Hot. But the food was great, and I've got a lot to write about."
'What was your favorite bite?" I asked.
"Savory or sweet?" he asked, grinning.
"Savory first, then sweet," I said, grinning back.
"Well, I had an incredible pork shoulder in a brown sugar-tamarind barbecue sauce. It was the perfect combination of sweet and sour." Dad has an amazing palate; he can tell whether the nutmeg in a soup has been freshly grated or not.
"That sounds delicious. And the best dessert?"
"Hands down, a piece of pecan pie. It made me think of you. I took notes- it was flavored with vanilla bean and cinnamon rum. But I bet we could make one even better."
"Ooh," I said. "Maybe with five-spice powder? I think that would go really well with the sweet pecans."
"That's my girl, the master of combining unusual flavors.”
― Rajani LaRocca, Midsummer's Mayhem

“One of the morals to the story: Don't just study your cards... study the players.”
― Niedria Kenny, Order in the Courtroom: The Tale of a Texas Poker Player

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― Avante Plastic Surgery

“Generally, you have to love someone else a lot to keep carrying on like that,
I thought. To have nothing and no one but still carry on, though, that must take an
even more serious kind of faith.”
― Michael Reed

“But let me tell you one more thing, Paddy Moran. This comes from hard experience. Be careful. This may be the fourth-largest city in the United States, but everyone knows everyone here. It's a bad place to fall.”
― Marc Grossberg, The Best People: A Tale of Trials and Errors

“the inscription at its base put San Jacinto on a par with Waterloo and other exalted fights. The defeat of Santa Anna, the "self-styled 'Napoleon of the West,"" led to the annexation of Texas, war with Mexico, and the "acquisition" of "one third of the present area of the American nation." As such, "San Jacinto was one of the decisive battles of the world.”
― Tony Horwitz, Spying on the South: Travels with Frederick Law Olmsted in a Fractured Land

“I will let you build me a home if you promise me a library.”
― Niedria Kenny

“Don't mess up your hair for a man who will not pay to get it done.”
― Niedria Kenny

“Go with me into the book. I dare you. It's safe there.”
― Niedria Kenny, Order in the Courtroom: The Tale of a Texas Poker Player

“I killed everyone in the book. But I was the only one who died in reality.”
― Niedria Kenny, Order in the Courtroom: The Tale of a Texas Poker Player

“Keep the lights off. They live in the dark anyway.”
― Niedria Dionne Kenny

“If I can get the people in Houston who are complaining about being without power in this heatwave after the hurricane to understand the unhoused argument about housing. Enjoy your roof.”
― Niedria Dionne Kenny