A Thousand Acres

A Thousand Acres 

by Jane Smiley

"We’ve always known families…that live together for years without speaking, for whom a historic dispute over land or money burns so hot that it engulfs every other subject, every other point of relationship or affection."

"We might as well have had a catechism," she says. "What is a farmer's first duty? To grow more food. What is a farmer's second duty? To buy more land." 

“He beat us more than he fucked us.  He beat us routinely.  And the thing is, he’s respected” 

“The fact is that the same sequence of days can arrange themselves into a number of different stories.” 

“Daddy thinks history starts fresh every day, every minute, that time itself begins with the feelings he’s having right now. That’s how he keeps betraying us, why he roars at us with such conviction.” 

“I always feel a little guilty when I break bad news to someone, because that energy, of knowing something others don’t, sort of puffs you up.” 

“We’re not going to be sad. We’re going to be angry until we die. It’s the only hope.”

...Jess and Pete thought alike -- like city boys, my father would have said, looking for the payoff in a situation rather than the pitfall. Rose and Ty and I played like farmers, looking for pitfalls, holes, drop-offs, something small that will tip the tractor, break it, eat into your time, your crop, the profits that already exist in your mind, and not only as a result of crop projections and long-range forecasts, but also as an ideal that has never been attained, but could be this year.” 

“When I went to first grade and the other children said that their fathers were farmers, I simply didn't believe them. I agreed in order to be polite, but in my heart I knew that those men were impostors, as farmers and as fathers, too. In my youthful estimation, Laurence Cook defined both categories. To really believe that others even existed in either category was to break the First Commandment.” 

“what it feels like to resist without seeming to resist, to absent yourself while seeming respectful and attentive.” 

"Forgiveness is a reflex for when you can't stand what you know. I resisted that reflex. That's my sole, solitary, lonely accomplishment."