Nice,′ I say, realizing only afterward that I’ve mimicked her, a bad habit of mine; I’m like one of those animals that imitates its predators to survive.
Before college, I hadn’t voluntarily read anything that might be called literature; I didn’t think I’d understand it; I never seemed to understand my English teacher’s interpretations of what we read.
Whenever people say they didn’t like the main character of a book, they mean they didn’t like the book. The main character has to be a friend? I don’t get that.
It might sound ordinary for a woman to find out her husband’s cheating on her, but not if you’re the woman and it’s your husband.
I live by Edith Whartons rule to get rid of anything neither useful nor beautiful. So I put the TV out on the street.
Finally, I asked how you got a boy to like you back. She said, ‘Just be yourself,’ as though I had any idea who that might be.
Everywhere you go, you see women more beautiful than yourself. You imagine him being attracted to them. You’re drinking gasoline to stay warm.
You have to shrink yourself to fit into this little life with him.
It’s perfectly natural to doubt your judgment about doubting your judgment.
You try to plan your life, but that’s not how it works.
Archie asked me if I knew Dante’s definition of hell... “Proximity without intimacy,” he said.
I never expected anyone in my family to change, and especially not my father, who changed first and most profoundly: He died.
It occurred to me that the quiet in the suburbs had nothing to do with peace.
Even now, remembering the sound of his voice chastens every word I say.
We change into our bathing suits, both of us pale like larvae, and then we walk down to the water.
He could do whatever he wanted. My father was the same way: a houseful of guests, and my mother’s duty was to provide food, drink, fun, and conversation, while my father’s was to nap or read.
I saw my life in scale: it was just my life. It was not momentous, and only now did I recognize that it had once seemed so to me; that was while my father was watching.
There are things that two people say in the middle of the night That don’t make sense to a third at breakfast.
While home is the place where you can relax and be yourself, this doesn’t mean that you can take advantage of the love and affection other members of your family have for you.
The one I love the most is about two mayflies on a date; they watch a nature documentary about themselves and discover their life span is only one day long – after mating, they’ll die.
In a cab home from a jazz club, he said, “You act like I just want to sleep with you.” He said, “I want to everything with you.