“Everything about [chance] scares the bejesus out of so many people; it's the this thing they try to avoid at all costs. Don't travel to the Middle East these days - there's a chance something could happen. Don't get involved with that new fellow on Creamery Street - I hear a lot of mud was scraped off his floor after the divorce. Don't have your baby at home - there's a a chance something could go wrong. Don't don't don't... Well, you can't live your life like that! You can't spend your entire life avoiding chance. It's out there, it's inescapable, it's a part of the soul of the world. There are no sure things in this universe, and it's absolutely ridiculous to try and live like there are!”
“No one said living isn't a pretty chancy business, Sibyl. No one gets out of here alive.”
“Boys look at us like we look at horses: color, height, eyes. tail. They can't help but have preferences.”
“Then there were those girls who became midwives: girls who could not get enough of the tiniest of babies - girls who would grow into women who absolutely reveled in the magnificent process of birth...The difference between a woman who becomes an OB and the women who becomes and midwife has less to do with education, philosophy or upbringing than with the depth of her appreciation for the miracle of labor and for life in its moment of emergence.”
“...we were too young- and the ground too muddy- for our small part of the earth to move.”
“When the sun is strong and the air is warm, however, we shout greetings to one another down the lengths of long driveways and from the windows of our cars as we pass; we hold our heads high as we walk, staring up into the sky with our eyes shut and our faces widened by smiles. We breathe in deeply the summery air, but this sort of inhalation doesn’t result in a sigh; it’s a precursor to a purr, or the moans one might make during a backrub. We no longer mope, we no longer grouse. We are filled with energy. Although”
“I forced a swift smile, then turned back to my glass, salvation and sanctuary viniferously bundled into one.”
“Yes, I also came home to settle my father's estate."
"Would you have come home if it hadn't also been your job?"
"I think you know the answer to that."
"You hated him, didn't you?"
Nell poured the coffee and pushed his cup across the counter to him so he could fix it the way he liked.
Matter-of-factly, she said, "Yes, I hated him. And I think it's a cosmic joke that I ended up with all his
property.”
“It just goes to show that what one person considers a "bad attitude" might actually just be total frustration over being pushed beyond the brink of one's mental and physical endurance.”
“You said something very true the other day: that for us, nudity begins with the face.”
“As you learn anything, in fact, your brain is constantly checking current experience against stored templates—essentially memory—of previous, similar situations and sensations, asking “Is this new?” and “Is this something I need to attend to?”
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