"I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them."
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"I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them."
"'There aren't any men in what I'm writing, only a woman.'
'Isn't she lonely?' You finished your drink, put your glass on the table.
'She has plans - things to do, places to see.'
'And a man would stop her?'
'Yes.' I finished my drink too."
"self is a process, not an object."
"words and numbers are of equal value, for, in the cloak of knowledge, one is warp and the other woof. it is no more important to count the sands than it is to name the stars."
"love saves you, as long as there's a you to be saved."
"we were painting by numbers, starting with the greens."
"So what‘s the answer, Evie? What do we do?” I pulled a face and scratched my head. “Er…yeah…I‘m not so sure. Maybe riot on the streets, raise a revolution and overthrow the entire system?”
"Sometimes I wonder if people don't want freedom as much as they want meaning.”
"there was a certain kind of pleasure, a certain type of adventurous and audacious childhood, that only New York City could offer a child."
“...all people at root are time optimists. We always think there's enough time to do things with other people. Time to say things to them. And then something happens and then we stand there holding on to words like 'if'.”
"oh girl, we have known littlebit love. that littlebit of honey left in an empty jar that traps the sweetness in your mouth long enough to mask your hunger. we have run tongues over teeth to savor that last littlebit as long as we could, and in all our living, nothing has starved us more."
“Sometimes the toilet paper does not win. Sometimes a broke woman needs the red wine more.”
"he placed his hands / on my mind / before reaching / for my waist / my hips / or my lips / he didn't call me / beautiful first / he called me / exquisite."
"Poor girls. The world fattens them on the promise of love. How badly they need it, and how little most of them will ever get."
"it's hard to express how profound it is to have your experience broadcast back to you for the first time, how shocking it feels to be acknowledged, as if your own sense of realness had only existed before as a concept."
"The lovelorn English major contemplated the symbolism of this."
"and it feels wild to be the one who's the innocent."
“Tell her that you love her hair, that you love her skin, her lips, because, in truth, you love them more than you love your own.”
“Why are there so many shadows in the world, Kate? Shouldn‘t there be just as much light?”
“If there are a million ponds out there, with versions of you and me living similar and different lives, there‘s none better than right here, right now. I‘m more sure of that than anything in the world.”
"there is redemption in struggle."
"Bender pondered the wine in his hand. 'A writer needs four things to achieve greatness, Pasquale: desire, disappointment, and the sea.'
'That's only three.'
Alvis finished his wine. 'You have to do disappointment twice.'"
"lyric you in lilacs / dash you in the rain ... yeah if i were a poet i'd kid / nap you"
"it is a strange thing, isn't it, to have an educational philosophy that thinks of the other students in the classroom with your child as competitors for the attention of the teacher and not allies in the adventure of learning?"
"the peace movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not yet able to write a love letter."
"however well-intentioned, books cannot give recipes for how to be happy... whether we are happy depends on inner harmony."
"it's about going to extremes and expressing the bright hope that life offers us, a hope that makes us brave and expels darkness with light. that's what i want my life to be all about - full of abandon, whimsy, and in love."
surprisingly endearing read. palms up.
"the work wants to be made, and it wants to be made through you."
