Quotes from Bee Season

Myla Goldberg ·  275 pages

Rating: (22.8K votes)


“She has often felt that her outsides were too dull for her insides, that deep within her there was something better than what everyone else could see.”
― Myla Goldberg, quote from Bee Season


“Rushing toward her are all the letters of the alphabet. Each one moves in its own way, X cartwheeling over and over, C hopping forward, M and N marching stiff-legged and resolute.”
― Myla Goldberg, quote from Bee Season


“The two bond over their mutual lack of family ties: Saul from his disownment, Miriam from the car accident that orphaned her as a college junior. Both want children. Miriam has inherited her parents' idea of procreative legitimacy, wants to compensate for her only-child-dom. She sees in Saul the househusband who will enable her parental ambitions without disabling her autonomy. In Miriam, Saul sees the means to a book-lined study and a lifestyle conducive to mystical advancement. They are both absolutely certain these things equal love.”
― Myla Goldberg, quote from Bee Season


“Miriam will never know what kind of dog attacked her, will imagine a Doberman or a German shepherd with snarling, angry teeth despite the fact she bears neither bite marks nor broken skin. It will never cross her mind that the dog was a beagle and that she was knocked over from a surprise more than force. The children of the house she fled will use the incident to convince their parents to keep the dog, which had been on the verge of being given away for its propensity to shit at the slightest hint of thunder it having been sequestered in the garage that night because of a stormy forecast. The family will never know what manner of burglar their fog deflected, will imagine a scruffy, heavy-set man with scars and a limp groping the family jewelery. It will never cross their minds that their intruder was am upper middle-class wife and mother of two who would have had eyes only for their Chinese teakettle. ”
― Myla Goldberg, quote from Bee Season


“While she eventually adjusts to the faded motivational posters featuring long-dead baby animals and the fifties-era reading books whose soporific effects have intensified with each decade of use she can't get it out of of her head that while she is speeding around in circles waiting to be told when to stop other kids are flying to the moon.”
― Myla Goldberg, quote from Bee Season



“Eliza wonders if death is not a sleep you can’t wake up from but life reduced to one inescapable moment.”
― Myla Goldberg, quote from Bee Season


“Miriam came to consider Eliza a gosling born into a family of ducks, loved and accepted, but always and forever a goose.”
― Myla Goldberg, quote from Bee Season


About the author

Myla Goldberg
Born place: The United States
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Popular quotes

“Hey beautiful,” Trey answers, sounding exhausted.

“Hey you.” My heart clenches in my chest from the sound of his voice.

He breathes heavily. “I’m sitting here, shirt off, beer in hand, TV on, and I feel so fucking empty.” The image of him lying on the couch we bought together, his beautiful body stretched out across the cushions, makes me ache in places I haven’t ached in a long time. I want him so bad. “I’m missing my girl tucked against my chest.”

“I would give anything to be there right now,” I answer honestly.

Sighing, he asks, “Remember that piece of spaghetti I threw on the ceiling the night before you left?”

“Yeah.” I smile to myself, thinking about that night. Trey insisted upon making spaghetti and meatballs for me. He came home with a grocery bag full of pasta, spaghetti sauce, and pre-made meatballs. When cooking the noodles, he told me an “old wives’ tale.” He said if you throw the noodles to the ceiling and it sticks, then the pasta is done. What he didn’t realize is if that pasta never comes down, you overcooked it.

“It fell this morning. Scared the shit out of me. I thought it was a spider trying to bury itself in my hair while I was making eggs.”

A laugh bursts out of me as I think about Trey bouncing around the apartment, spaghetti in hair thinking it was a spider. “Oh no. Miss Pasta-relli finally fell?”

“She did and that squirrely bitch knew exactly what she was doing, too. Trying to scare the crap right out of me.”

“Seems like she did.” I chuckle.

“But I got the last laugh when I turned the trash compactor on. Her little pasta self squiggled down the drain. Revenge never felt so sweet.”

Still laughing, I shake my head. “Is this what your life has come to? Fighting with old, overcooked pasta?”

“I’m telling you, Amelia, with you gone, I’ve lost my damn mind.”

“Sounds like it”
― Meghan Quinn, quote from The Other Brother


“It was much smaller than her own, but everyone seemed closer, as if each member were organically attached to one seamless body, whereas her enormous extended family felt like cheerfully mismatched Lego bricks in a large bucket.”
― Min Jin Lee, quote from Pachinko


“My wolf brothers and sisters have a saying (or a howl) that goes, "Don't leave anything you can't come back to." I know I can come back here and I will be welcomed, and that brings me more comfort than anything else in this world.”
― Ruth Emmie Lang, quote from Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance


“But then, people usually do miss what's right in front of them.”
― Lisa Maxwell, quote from The Last Magician


“لو كنا خيّرين تقائياً وموجّهين طبيعياً نحو الخير م كانت هناك حاجة لوصايا زجرية. لا بل نحن بعيدون ك البعد عن ذلك كم تلاحظ دون شك... إنما وفي أغلب الأوقات, نحن لا نجد صعوبة في معرفة مايجب القيام به من أجل العمل الصالح, لكننا لا نتوقف عن السماح لأنفسنا ببعض الاستثناءات, وذلك لأننا وبكل بساطة نفضّل أنفسنا على الآخرين! لهذا السبب يدعونا الواجب الملزم للمزيد من "الضغط على الذات" ولبذل الجهود من أجل الاستمرار في التقدم والتحسن”
― Luc Ferry, quote from A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living


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