“We are liars. We are beautiful and privileged. We are cracked and broken.”
“The universe is seeming really huge right now. I need something to hold on to.”
“But the thing that makes me really messed up is the contradiction: when I'm not hating myself, I feel righteous and victimized. Like the world is so unfair.”
“I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools."
"We were warm and shivering, and young and ancient, and alive. I was thinking, it's true. We already love each other. We already do."
“Silence is a protective coating over pain.”
“I was talking about Cady’s hair,” says Bonnie. “You don’t have to tell her she looks dead.” “It’s okay,” I tell Bonnie. “I don’t actually care what you think, so it’s perfectly okay.”
“The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever.”
"Be normal, now.
Right now.
Because you are.
Because you can be."
“I'll be fine, they tell me. I won't die. It'll just hurt a lot.”
“After a minute, Gat leaned back and let me go first. “Not because you’re a girl but because I’m a good person,” he told me.”
“Do not accept an evil you can change.”
"And maybe
just maybe,
he'd come back one day,
and burn that
fucking
place
to the ground."
"It is possible people are curious about us because we do not show them our hearts. It is possible that we enjoy the way that people are curious about us."
“If you want to live where people are not afraid of mice, you must give up living in palaces.”
“Here is something I love about Gat: he is so enthusiastic, so relentlessly interested in the world, that he has trouble imagining the possibility that other people will be bored by what he’s saying. Even when they tell him outright. But also, he doesn’t like to let us off easy. He wants to make us think—even when we don’t feel like thinking.”
“I can't even say sorry. There is not even a Scrabble word for how bad I feel.”
“Be sad, be sorry-but don't shoulder it.”
“Always do what you're afraid to do.”
"Johnny, he is bounce, effort, and snark. Back then he would hang our barbies by their necks or shoot us with guns made of lego."
"Mirren, she is sugar, curiosity, and rain."
"He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. I could have looked at him forever."
"Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you."
"Be a little kinder than you have to.”
"He was a person who couldn't fake a smile but smiled often.”
“Better than chocolate, being with you last night. Silly me, I thought that nothing was better than chocolate.”
“Divorce shreds the muscles of our hearts so that they will hardly beat without a struggle.”
“She confused being spartan with being charitable, and gave away her possessions without truly doing good with them.
She confused being sick with being brave, and suffered agonies while imagining she merited praise for it.
She confused wit with intelligence, and made people laugh rather than lightening their hearts or making them think.”
“One day I looked at Gat, lying in the Clairmont hammock with a book, and he seemed, well, like he was mine. Like he was my particular person."
“Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound,
then from my eyes,
my ears,
my mouth.
It tasted like salt and failure. The bright red shame of being unloved soaked the grass in front of our house, the bricks of the path, the steps of the porch. My heart spasmed among the peonies like a trout.”
“Does she stay because she loves him as meat loves salt? Or does she stay because he has now promised her the kingdom? It is hard for her to tell the difference.”
"I am a more powerful person than my mother will ever know."
"Maybe this is a summer of second chances."
“I see it for what is is, now. It is a house built on ashes. Ashes of the life Granddad shared with Gran, ashes of the maple from which the tire swing flew, ashes of the old Victorian house with the porch and the hammock. The new house is built on the grave of all the trophies and symbols of the family: the New Yorker cartoons, the taxidermy, the embroidered pillows, the family portraits.”
"No one is a criminal.
No one is an addict.
No one is a failure."
“It is not mysterious to be home on a Saturday night, reading a novel in a pile of smelly golden retrievers.”
“First grandchild,” says Thatcher. “There’s never anything to match that feeling.”
“I wanted to touch him like he was a bunny, a kitten, something so special and soft your fingertips can’t leave it alone.”
“Why is it a good idea for you and not a good idea for me?”
"I was pure liquid loss."
"The Sinclair daughters were sunburned and blessed. Tall, merry, and rich. Like princesses in a fairy tale."
“In America, here is how we operate: We work for what we want, and we get ahead. We never take no for answer, and we deserve the rewards of our perseverance.”
"Her veins were never open. Her heart never leapt out to flop helplessly on the lawn. She never melted into puddles. She was normal. Always. At any cost."
"I don't want anything I don't need."
"It doesn’t matter if trust-fund money is running out; if credit card bills go unpaid on the kitchen counter. It doesn’t matter if there’s a cluster of pill bottles on the bedside table.
It doesn't matter if one of us is desperately, desperately in love.
So much
in love
that equally desperate measures
must be taken."
"I wrap my arms around him like I could stop him from disappearing, like I could make this moment last."
"If I married Drake I'd have all yellow flowers," Mirren says. "Yellow flowers everywhere. And a spring yellow dress, like a normal wedding dress only yellow. And he would wear a yellow cummerbund."
"He would have to love you very, very much to wear a yellow cummerbund," I tell her.
"Yeah," says Mirren. "But Drake would do it."
“Not everyone has private islands. Some people work on them. Some work in factories. Some don’t have work. Some don’t have food.”
"They had the best educations, a thousand chances, a thousand connections, and still they'd ended up unable to support themselves. None of them did anything useful in the world."
"For Cady with everything, everything."
"My full name is Cadence Sinclair Eastman.
I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools.
I like a twist of meaning.
I endure."
“The universe is seeming really huge right now. I need something to hold on to.”
“But the thing that makes me really messed up is the contradiction: when I'm not hating myself, I feel righteous and victimized. Like the world is so unfair.” “I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools."
"We were warm and shivering, and young and ancient, and alive. I was thinking, it's true. We already love each other. We already do."
“Silence is a protective coating over pain.”
“I was talking about Cady’s hair,” says Bonnie. “You don’t have to tell her she looks dead.” “It’s okay,” I tell Bonnie. “I don’t actually care what you think, so it’s perfectly okay.”
“The island is ours. Here, in some way, we are young forever.”
"Be normal, now.
Right now.
Because you are.
Because you can be."
“I'll be fine, they tell me. I won't die. It'll just hurt a lot.”
“After a minute, Gat leaned back and let me go first. “Not because you’re a girl but because I’m a good person,” he told me.”
“Do not accept an evil you can change.”
"And maybe
just maybe,
he'd come back one day,
and burn that
fucking
place
to the ground."
"It is possible people are curious about us because we do not show them our hearts. It is possible that we enjoy the way that people are curious about us."
“If you want to live where people are not afraid of mice, you must give up living in palaces.”
“Here is something I love about Gat: he is so enthusiastic, so relentlessly interested in the world, that he has trouble imagining the possibility that other people will be bored by what he’s saying. Even when they tell him outright. But also, he doesn’t like to let us off easy. He wants to make us think—even when we don’t feel like thinking.”
“I can't even say sorry. There is not even a Scrabble word for how bad I feel.”
“Be sad, be sorry-but don't shoulder it.”
“Always do what you're afraid to do.”
"Johnny, he is bounce, effort, and snark. Back then he would hang our barbies by their necks or shoot us with guns made of lego."
"Mirren, she is sugar, curiosity, and rain.""He was contemplation and enthusiasm. Ambition and strong coffee. I could have looked at him forever."
"Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you."
"Be a little kinder than you have to.”
"He was a person who couldn't fake a smile but smiled often.”
“Better than chocolate, being with you last night. Silly me, I thought that nothing was better than chocolate.”
“Divorce shreds the muscles of our hearts so that they will hardly beat without a struggle.”
“She confused being spartan with being charitable, and gave away her possessions without truly doing good with them.
She confused being sick with being brave, and suffered agonies while imagining she merited praise for it.
She confused wit with intelligence, and made people laugh rather than lightening their hearts or making them think.”
“One day I looked at Gat, lying in the Clairmont hammock with a book, and he seemed, well, like he was mine. Like he was my particular person."
“Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed. Blood gushed rhythmically from my open wound,
then from my eyes,
my ears,
my mouth.
“Does she stay because she loves him as meat loves salt? Or does she stay because he has now promised her the kingdom? It is hard for her to tell the difference.”
"I am a more powerful person than my mother will ever know."
"Maybe this is a summer of second chances."
“I see it for what is is, now. It is a house built on ashes. Ashes of the life Granddad shared with Gran, ashes of the maple from which the tire swing flew, ashes of the old Victorian house with the porch and the hammock. The new house is built on the grave of all the trophies and symbols of the family: the New Yorker cartoons, the taxidermy, the embroidered pillows, the family portraits.”
"No one is a criminal.
No one is an addict.
No one is a failure."
“It is not mysterious to be home on a Saturday night, reading a novel in a pile of smelly golden retrievers.”
“First grandchild,” says Thatcher. “There’s never anything to match that feeling.”
“I wanted to touch him like he was a bunny, a kitten, something so special and soft your fingertips can’t leave it alone.”
“Why is it a good idea for you and not a good idea for me?”
"I was pure liquid loss."
"The Sinclair daughters were sunburned and blessed. Tall, merry, and rich. Like princesses in a fairy tale."
“In America, here is how we operate: We work for what we want, and we get ahead. We never take no for answer, and we deserve the rewards of our perseverance.”
"I don't want anything I don't need."
"It doesn’t matter if trust-fund money is running out; if credit card bills go unpaid on the kitchen counter. It doesn’t matter if there’s a cluster of pill bottles on the bedside table.
It doesn't matter if one of us is desperately, desperately in love.
So much
in love
that equally desperate measures
must be taken."
"I wrap my arms around him like I could stop him from disappearing, like I could make this moment last."
"If I married Drake I'd have all yellow flowers," Mirren says. "Yellow flowers everywhere. And a spring yellow dress, like a normal wedding dress only yellow. And he would wear a yellow cummerbund."
"He would have to love you very, very much to wear a yellow cummerbund," I tell her.
"Yeah," says Mirren. "But Drake would do it."
“Not everyone has private islands. Some people work on them. Some work in factories. Some don’t have work. Some don’t have food.”
"They had the best educations, a thousand chances, a thousand connections, and still they'd ended up unable to support themselves. None of them did anything useful in the world.""For Cady with everything, everything."
"My full name is Cadence Sinclair Eastman.
I suffer migraines. I do not suffer fools.
I like a twist of meaning.
I endure."
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