Best Quotes - The Lincoln Highway
I love this book because of the characters. They are beautifully complicated in the most innocent way. This book is the Catcher in the Rye for my adulthood.
“There’s a certain charm to a town like this. And there’s a certain kind of person who would rather live here than anywhere else — even in the twentieth century. Like a person who wants to make some sense of the world. Living in the big city, rushing around amid all that hammering and clamoring, the events of life can begin to seem random. But in a town this size, when a piano falls out of a window and lands on a fellow’s head, there’s a good chance you’ll know why he deserved it.” 85
“When someone asks if they can speak to someone else in private, it is difficult to know what to do with yourself. For one thing, they generally don’t tell you how long they’re going to be, so it’s hard to know how deeply you should involve yourself in some new endeavor. Should you take the opportunity to visit the washroom? Or start a jigsaw puzzle that depicts a sailboat race with fifty spinnakers? And how far should you go? You certainly need to go far enough so that you can’t hear them talking. That was the whole point of their asking you to leave in the first place. But it often sounds like they may want you to come back a bit later, so you need to be close enough to hear them when they call.” 98
“There was no question about it. She had remade it. I thought I’d done a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. There wasn’t a ripple on the surface. And where the sheet gets folded at the top of the blanket, there was a four-inch-high rectangle of white running from one edge of the bed to the other as if she had measured it with a ruler… It was such a thing of beauty, I didn’t want to disturb it until I was ready to go to bed. So I sat on the floor, leaned against the wall, and gave some thought to the Watson brothers, as I waited for everyone else to fall asleep.” 104
“That only happened because Duchess wouldn't cross the river when it was riding high.
That’s true. But why would that make you feel sorry for him?
Because he must not know how to swim, Emmett. And he was too ashamed to admit it.”
“Because young children don’t know how things are supposed to be done, they will come to imagine that the habits of their household are the habits of the world. If a child grows up in a family where angry words are exchanged over supper, he will assume that angry words are exchanged at every kitchen table; while if a child grows up in a family where no words are exchanged over supper at all, he will assume that all families eat in silence. And yet despite the prevalence of this truth, the young Emmett knew that chores left half done in the early afternoon were a sign of something going amiss – just as he would come to know a few years later that the shifting crops from one season to the next was the sign of a farmer who’s at a loss what to do.” 169 & 170
“Woolly paused for a moment to marvel at the handwriting. For even though his name had been written in letters two inches tall with a big black marker, you could still tell it was his sister’s handwriting – the very same handwriting that had been used to write the tiny little numbers on the tiny little rectangle in the telephone dial. Isn’t that interesting, thought Wolly, that a person’s handwriting is the same no matter how big or small.” 289
“Woolly took the dictionary out and felt its reassuring heft in his hands, How he had loved this dictionary – because its purpose was to tell you exactly what a word meant. Pick a word, turn to the appropriate page, and there was the word’s meaning. And if there was a word in the definition you didn’t recognize, you could look up that word and find out exactly what it meant.” 289
“Half the time when you could use the help of a man, he’s nowhere to be found. He’s off seeing to one thing or another that could just as easily be seen to tomorrow as seen to today and that just happens to be five steps out of earshot. But as soon as you need him to be somewhere else, you can’t push him out the door.” 380
“What Wooly did not tell Billy was that sometimes – like when he first arrived at St. Paul’s – he would wind the watch sixteen times for six days in a row on porpoise so that he could be half an hour ahead of everybody else. While other times, he would wind it twelve times for six days in a row so that he could be half an hour behind. Either way – whether he would it sixteen or wound it twelve – it was a little like when Alice stepped through the looking glass, or the Pevensies through the wardrobe, only to find themselves in a world that was and wasn’t theirs.” 456
“Emmett could tell that Sally was as ashamed as he was, and there was comfort in that too. Not the comfort of knowing that someone else was feeling a similar sting of rebuke. Rather, the comfort of knowing one’s sense of right and wrong was shared by another, and thus was somehow more true.” 477
“The funny thing about a picture, thought Woolly, the funny thing about a picture is that while it knows everything that’s happened up until the moment it’s been taken, it knows absotively nothing about what will happen next. And yet, once the picture has been framed and hung on a wall, what you see when you look closely are all the things that were about to happen. All the un-things. The things that were unanticipated. And unintended. And unreversible.” 498
“And yet, despite the fact that Emmett and Townhouse were two young men on the verge of heading out in different directions with no real assurance of where they would land, when Townhouse said at their parting, I’ll see you, Emmett hasn’t the slightest doubt that this eas true.” 520
“Excepting his brother, I guess I know Billy Watson better than just about anybody. I know how he eats his chicken, peas, and mashed potatoes (starting with the chicken, moving on to the peas, and saving the potatoes for last). I know how he does his homework (sitting up straight at the kitchen table and using that little rubber eraser at the end of his pencil to remove any trace of a mistake). I know how he says his prayers (always remembering to include his father, his mother, his brother, and me). But I also know how he gets himself in trouble.” 529
“But for some reason, for some reason that had never been fully explained, Emmett’s father had left all of that behind when he moved to Nebraska. Left it behind without a trace. Or almost without a trace. There were trunks in the attic with their exotic stickers from foreign hotels, and the picnic basket with its orderly arrangement of utensils, and the unused china in the hutch – remnants of the life that Emmett’s father had relinquished in order to pursue his Emersonian ideal. Emmett shook his head, uncertain of whether his father’s actions should give him cause for disappointment or admiration. As usual with such puzzles of the heart, the answer was probably both.” 536
“Although Xenos sounds like it might be the name of a figure from history – like Xerxes or Xenophon – Xenos is not the name of a person at all. Xenos is a word from ancient Greek that means foreigner and stranger, guest and friend. Or more simply, the Other. As Professor Abernathe says: Xenos is the one on the periphery in the unassuming garb whom you hardly notice. Throughout history, he has appeared in many guises: as a watchman or attendant, a messenger or page, a shopkeeper, waiter, or vagabond. Though usually unnamed, for the most part unknown, and too often forgotten, Xenos always shows up at just the right time in just the right place in order to play his essential role in the course of events.” 553
“ – Don’t worry, said Billy to Emmett. He can’t shoot me.
– Billy, you don’t know what Duchess will or won’t do.
– No, said Billy. I don;t know what Duchess will or won’t do. But I do know that he can’t shoot me because he can’t read.
– What? Said Emmett and Duchess together, the one perplexed, the other offended.
– Who says I can’t read? Demanded Duchess.
– You did, explained Billy. First you said that small print gave you a headache. Then you said reading in cars made you queasy. Then you said that you were allergic to books.
– Billy turned to Emmett.
– He says it that way because he’s too ashamed to admit that he can’t read. Just like he’s too ashamed to admit that he can’t swim. “ 563
