John Hart: Use

John Hart is American author with multiple books and awards. Explore interesting quotes on use.
John Hart: 16   quotes 1   like

“I used to look at homeless peopleand try to imagine what they had once looked like. It's not easy. Beneath the grime and degradation is a face once adored by someone. It's a truth that tricks the eye; our glances slide away. But something happened to ruin that life, to strip it bare; and it was something small, something that but for the grace of God could take us, too.”

John Hart

Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 2.

Life , God , Truth , Imagination

“I drifted for what felt like hours. Neither of us spoke; we knew better. Peace like this came rarely and was as fragile as a child's smile.”

John Hart

Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 8.

Peace , Smile

“I looked at the high walls where once-white paint had grayed and then peeled. Barbara had always said the house had good bones, and she was right about that; but it had no heart, not with us living inside it. In place of laughter, trust, and joy, there was a hollow emptiness, a kind of rot, and I marveled at my blindness. Was it the alcohol, I wondered, that had made it bearable? Or was it something else, some inner failing? Maybe it was neither. They say that if you drop a frog into boiling water, he'll hop right out. But put the same frog into cold water and slowly turn up the heat, and he'll sit quietly until his blood begins to boil. He'll let himself be cooked alive. Maybe that's how it was for me. Maybe I was like that frog.”

John Hart

Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 31.

Alcohol , Laughter , Water , Heart

“I thought of my own wife's tears and her limp submission the night before — the bleak satisfaction I took from her smallness as I used her shamelessly. She's cried out, and remembering the taste of salted tears, I thought, for that instant, that I knew how the devil felt. Sex and tears, like sun and rain, were never meant to share a moment: but for a fallen soul, an act of wrong could, at times, feel very right, and that scared the hell out of me.”

John Hart

Source: The King of Lies (2006), Ch. 4.

Sex , Feeling , Soul , Hell