“If people really grew up, there would be no crime, no divorce, no Civil War reenactors....it's not like you think it will be, that one day you'll wake up and realize that you've got things figured out. You never figure it out. Ever." - Isabel Spellman attempting to explain growing up to her sister Rae”
― Lisa Lutz, quote from Curse of the Spellmans
“I'm staying," Henry said, annoyed.
"Why?"
"Because, if I leave, it would be like abandoning two mentally challenged people in a nuclear waste dump.”
― Lisa Lutz, quote from Curse of the Spellmans
“Mrs. Chandler shouted after us, "And I hope that was all-natural food coloring you put on my dog!”
― Lisa Lutz, quote from Curse of the Spellmans
“If you have enough unanswered questions, you have a certifiable mystery, and those are impossible to resist.”
― Lisa Lutz, quote from Curse of the Spellmans
“I tried not to think of Uncle Ray as being gone forever. I just liked to imagine him on one really long Lost Weekend.”
― Lisa Lutz, quote from Curse of the Spellmans
“David, I just broke into your home. Clearly I don’t respect boundaries. Do you really think a verbal request is going to put a dent in any of my plans?”
― Lisa Lutz, quote from Curse of the Spellmans
“Your father and I haven't had this much quality time since our honeymoon."
"So what?"
"So, what if we can't stand each other?”
― Lisa Lutz, quote from Curse of the Spellmans
“I’m going to let you in on a secret. People don’t grow up like you think they do. The whole grown-up thing is a myth. Whatever’s wrong with you now will probably be wrong with you in twenty years. If people really grew up there would be no crime, no divorce, no Civil War reenactors. Think about it. Was Uncle Ray a grown-up? Does Dad always behave like a grown-up? It’s all bullshit. I can’t tell you what Mom’s been doing lately, but I will say, not grown-up… It’s not like you think it will be, that one day you’ll wake up and realize that you’ve got things figured out. You never figure it out. Ever.”
― Lisa Lutz, quote from Curse of the Spellmans
Lisa Lutz
Born place: in The United States
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“He thought of it as a contest, like the children at school who would twist your arm and say Give in? Give in? until you did; then they would let go. He didn't love me, it was an idea of himself he loved and he wanted someone to join him, anyone would do, I didn't matter so I didn't have to care.”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from Surfacing
“Remember, that money is of the prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on.”
― Max Weber, quote from The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
“For human nature is strange: the less we are inclined to self-sacrifice, the more we insist on it in other”
― Bolesław Prus, quote from The Doll
“One of my greatest fears is family decline.There’s an old Chinese saying that “prosperity can never last for three generations.” I’ll bet that if someone with empirical skills conducted a longitudinal survey about intergenerational performance, they’d find a remarkably common pattern among Chinese immigrants fortunate enough to have come to the United States as graduate students or skilled workers over the last fifty years. The pattern would go something like this: • The immigrant generation (like my parents) is the hardest-working. Many will have started off in the United States almost penniless, but they will work nonstop until they become successful engineers, scientists, doctors, academics, or businesspeople. As parents, they will be extremely strict and rabidly thrifty. (“Don’t throw out those leftovers! Why are you using so much dishwasher liquid?You don’t need a beauty salon—I can cut your hair even nicer.”) They will invest in real estate. They will not drink much. Everything they do and earn will go toward their children’s education and future. • The next generation (mine), the first to be born in America, will typically be high-achieving. They will usually play the piano and/or violin.They will attend an Ivy League or Top Ten university. They will tend to be professionals—lawyers, doctors, bankers, television anchors—and surpass their parents in income, but that’s partly because they started off with more money and because their parents invested so much in them. They will be less frugal than their parents. They will enjoy cocktails. If they are female, they will often marry a white person. Whether male or female, they will not be as strict with their children as their parents were with them. • The next generation (Sophia and Lulu’s) is the one I spend nights lying awake worrying about. Because of the hard work of their parents and grandparents, this generation will be born into the great comforts of the upper middle class. Even as children they will own many hardcover books (an almost criminal luxury from the point of view of immigrant parents). They will have wealthy friends who get paid for B-pluses.They may or may not attend private schools, but in either case they will expect expensive, brand-name clothes. Finally and most problematically, they will feel that they have individual rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and therefore be much more likely to disobey their parents and ignore career advice. In short, all factors point to this generation”
― Amy Chua, quote from Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother
“That's the nice thing about insanity: evil people kill you, but crazy ones try to make you understand.”
― Seanan McGuire, quote from A Local Habitation
Demons at Deadnight
The Hundred Thousand...
Sister
The Rook
Regeneration
The Darkest Part of...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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