“Love means never having to say you're sorry.”
“What the hell makes you so smart?" I asked. "I wouldn't go for coffee with you, " she answered. "Listen -- I wouldn't ask you." "That, "she replied "is what makes you stupid.”
“I was afraid of being rejected, yes. I was also afraid of being accepted for the wrong reasons.”
“The pain of not knowing what to do was exceeded only by that of knowing what I had done.”
“Please, if one of us cries, let both of us cry. But preferably neither of us.”
“What the hell makes you smart?" I asked.
"I wouldn't go for coffee with you."
"Listen - I wouldn't ask you."
"That," she replied, "is what makes you stupid.”
“He had then warned his daughter not to violate the Eleventh Commandment.
"Which one is that?" I asked her.
"Do not bullshit thy father," she said.”
“Now would you do me a favor?' From somewhere inside me came this devastating assault to make me cry. But I withstood. I would not cry. I would merely indicate to Jennifer - by the affirmative nodding of my head - that I would be happy to do her any favor whatsoever.
'Would you please hold me very tight?' she asked.
I put my hand on her forearm - Christ, so thin - and gave it a little squeeze.
'No, Oliver,' she said, 'really hold me. Next to me.'I was very, very careful - of the tubes and things - as I got onto the bed with her and put my arms around her.
'Thanks, Ollie.'
Those were her last words.”
“You don't know about falling off cliffs, Preppie,' she said. 'You never fell off one in your goddamn life.'
'Yeah,' I said, recovering the power of speech. 'When I met you.”
“Her handwriting was curious small sharp little letters with no capitals (who did she think she was, e. e. cummings?).”
“What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?”
“There was a brief silence. I think I heard snow falling.”
“What term do you employ when you speak of your progenitor?"
I answered with the term I'd always wanted to employ.
"Sonovabitch."
"To his face?" she asked.
"I never see his face."
"He wears a mask?"
"In a way, yes. Of stone. Of absolute stone.”
“Jenny, if you're so convinced I'm a loser, why did you bulldoze me into buying you coffee?'
She looked me straight in the eye and smiled.
'I like your body,' she said.”
“Either way I don't come first, which for some stupid reason bothers hell out of me, having grown up with the notion that I always had to be number one. Family heritage, don't you know?”
“But what does he do to qualify as a sonovabitch?” Jenny asked.
“Make me”, I replied.
“Beg pardon?”
“Make me”, I repeated.
Her eyes widened like saucers. “You mean like incest?” she asked.
“Don’t give me your family problems, Jen. I have enough of my own.”
“Like what, Oliver?” she asked, “like just what is it he makes you do?”
“The ‘right things’”, I said.
“What’s wrong with the ‘right things’?” she asked, delighting in the apparent paradox.”
“I think the Peace Corps is a fine thing, don't you?" he said.
"Well," I replied, "it's certainly better than War Corps.”
“I began to think about God. I mean, the notion of a Supreme Being existing somewhere began to creep into my private thoughts. Not because I wanted to strike Him on the face, to punch Him out for what He was about to do to me - to Jenny, that is. No, the kind of religious thoughts I had were just the opposite. Like, when I woke up in the morning and Jenny was there. Still there. I'm sorry, embarrassed even, but I hoped there was a God I could say thank you to.”
“Fue entonces cuando la terrorífica verdad empezó a imponèrseme
-¡Jenny, estamos legalmente casados!
-Si, ahora ya puedo comportarme como una perra”
“I didn't know you were related to Sewall Boat House too,' she said.
'Yeah. I come from a long line of wood and stone.”
“Voljeti ne znači vječito ponavljati da ti je žao”
“Amar significa nunca tener que decir lo siento”
“Love Means Not Ever Having To Say You're Sorry.”
“Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing yourself is Enlightenment. - Lao-Tzu”
“We’re here,’ the Clock says.
The Perfectionist opens her eyes. She sees nothing. It’s white. All white. There’s no up. There’s no down. No horizon. Nothing. It’s just white.
‘Clock, what is this?’ asks the Perfectionist. Her voice is shaky.
‘This is the future.’
‘This is the future?’ the Perfectionist asks. Her mouth is dry. She forces herself to swallow.
‘Why is the future like this?’
‘Because it hasn’t happened yet,’ says the Clock”
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” — Nelson Mandela”
“Oh, I just wasted two hundred dollars on a gym membership, which I didn’t use…even once. My shorts are getting shorter. Lately I’ve been looking like a slut—unintentionally of course.”
“The rose’s rarest essence lives in the thorns.”
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