Quotes from The Couple Next Door

“Her thoughts speed up and become less rational; her mind makes fantastic leaps. It's not that things don't make sense to her when she's like this — sometimes they make 'more' sense. They make sense the way dreams do. It's only when the dream is over that you see how odd it all was, how it actually didn't make sense at all.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“...nobody makes that much money without taking advantage of somebody. It's much easier to make money if you don't care who you hurt. If you have scruples, it's much harder to get rich.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“The wife is always the last to know, right?”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“She knows how judgemental mothers are, how good it feels to sit in judgement of someone else.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“Everyone is faking it, all of them pretending to be something they’re not. The whole world is built on lies and deceit.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“She knows she can’t survive this on her own.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“Anne remains in the living room, cradling her sleeping”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“He stares at her back and thinks about how much she has changed since the baby was born. It was entirely unexpected. They'd looked forward to the baby so much together--decorating the nursery, shopping for baby things, attending the birth-preparation classes, feeling the baby kick in her tummy. They had been some of the happiest months of his life. It had never occurred to him that it would be hard afterward. He hadn't seen it coming.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“I was crying when I fed her because I was sad about being fat and unattractive, and Cynthia—who is supposed to be a friend—had been flirting with my husband all evening.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“They will be judged, by the police and by everybody else. Serves them right, leaving their baby alone. She would think that, too, if it had happened to someone else. She knows how judgmental mothers are, how good it feels to sit in judgment of someone else.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“when a wife goes missing, the husband is usually the prime suspect, and probably vice versa.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“She makes things work the best she can, but it isn’t easy. Marco”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“listening to music. When we get home, we have to wake her. So no, I wouldn’t recommend her.” Rasbach nods, makes a note. Then he looks up and says, “Tell me about your husband.” “What about my husband?” “What kind of man is he?” “He’s”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“he wouldn’t be driving an Audi –”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“She glances at the baby monitor sitting at the end of the table, its small red light glowing like the tip of a cigarette.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“rapidly around the second floor of the house while”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“Who goes to a dinner party next door and leaves her baby alone in the house? What kind of mother does such a thing? She feels the familiar agony set in – she is not a good mother. So what if the sitter canceled? They should have brought Cora with them, put her in her portable playpen. But Cynthia had said no children.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“He must remain objective. He can’t afford to become emotionally invested in his cases. He would never survive.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“Whenever there was an opening for a new show, she would invite him; there would be champagne and hors d’oeuvres, women in smart dresses and men in well-cut suits. Anne would circulate around the room, stopping to talk with the people clustered in front of the paintings—wild, abstract splashes of color or more somber, tonal works. Marco didn’t understand any of it. The most beautiful, the most arresting thing in the room, for him, would always be Anne. He would stay out of her way, stand over by the bar eating cheese, or off to the side, and watch her do her thing. She had been trained for it, getting her degree in art history and modern art, but more than that, she had an instinct for it, a passion. Marco had not grown up with art, but it was part of her life, and he loved her for it.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“has learned in his years on the job, it is that people are capable of almost anything. Rasbach”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“Sometimes I wonder if it was right for us to keep things from him when you were younger.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“Marco hurries up the front steps of the house he’d left just hours before and bursts into the living room. He sees Anne on the sofa, cradling their tiny daughter in her arms. A uniformed police officer is standing behind the sofa, as if protecting her. Anne’s father and mother are not in the room. Marco wonders where they are, what has happened.”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

“clumsy fingers, feeling faintly guilty about going through his wife’s purse. It feels private. But this is an emergency. He dumps the contents onto the middle of their neatly made bed. Her wallet is there, her change purse, lipstick, pen, a tissue packet—it’s all there. Not an errand then. Maybe she stepped out to help a friend? An emergency of some kind? Still, she would have taken her purse with her if she was driving the car. And wouldn’t she have called him by now if she could? She could borrow someone else’s phone. It’s not like her to be thoughtless. Tom sits on the edge of the bed, quietly unraveling. His heart is beating too fast. Something is wrong. He thinks that maybe he should call the police. He”
― Shari Lapena, quote from The Couple Next Door

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Popular quotes

“Per il dolore, la felicità, l'amore non ci sono segni. E questo mi sembra di rara infelicità.”
― Christa Wolf, quote from Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays

“❝Washington — perhaps as many global powers have done in the past — uses what I might call the “immaculate conception” theory of crises abroad. That is, we believe we are essentially out there, just minding our own business, trying to help make the world right, only to be endlessly faced with a series of spontaneous, nasty challenges from abroad to which we must react. There is not the slightest consideration that perhaps US policies themselves may have at least contributed to a series of unfolding events. This presents a huge paradox: how can America on the one hand pride itself on being the world’s sole global superpower, with over seven hundred military bases abroad and the Pentagon’s huge global footprint, and yet, on the other hand, be oblivious to and unacknowledging of the magnitude of its own role — for better or for worse — as the dominant force charting the course of world events? This Alice-in-Wonderland delusion affects not just policy makers, but even the glut of think tanks that abound in Washington. In what may otherwise often be intelligent analysis of a foreign situation, the focus of each study is invariably the other country, the other culture, the negative intentions of other players; the impact of US actions and perceptions are quite absent from the equation. It is hard to point to serious analysis from mainstream publications or think tanks that address the role of the United States itself in helping create current problems or crises, through policies of omission or commission. We’re not even talking about blame here; we’re addressing the logical and self-evident fact that the actions of the world’s sole global superpower have huge consequences in the unfolding of international politics. They require examination.”
― Graham E. Fuller, quote from A World Without Islam

“She was with Jude so rarely that when she was, every cell of her body rang with grateful knowledge of it.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Landing

“When he removed his robes, you could see the hundreds of scars and bruises that shamelessly decorated his body. Huge black bruises, long scars that came from sword lacerations and whips and new wounds that bled fresh red blood.
The Dragonboy's father had no idea his son suffered.
That's because the boy never told.

From The Binding, a story from the upcoming tenth update of Dragons and Cicadas”
― L'Poni Baldwin, quote from Dragons and Cicadas: The Society On Da Run

“Ha detto: “Tre cose che non devi fare nella vita, Enait jan, per nessun motivo. La prima è usare le droghe. Ce ne sono che hanno un odore e un sapore buono e i sussurrano alle orecchie che sapranno farti stare meglio di come potrai mai stare senza di loro. Ma tu non devi credergli. Lo prometti?”
“Promesso”
“La seconda è usare le armi. Anche se qualcuno ti tratterà male, o ti insulterà, promettimi che la tua mano non si stringerà mai attorno a un coltello, a una pietra e neppure intorno a un mestolo di legno per il qhorma palaw, se qul mestolo di legno serve a ferire un uomo. Lo prometti?”
“Promesso”
“La terza è rubare. Ciò che è tuo ti appartiene, ciò che non è tuo no. I soldi che ti servono li guadagnerai lavorando, anche se il lavoro sarà faticoso. E non trufferai mai nessuno. Enait jan, vero? Sarai ospitale e tollerante con tutti. Promettimi che lo farai”
“Promesso”
Poi ha alzato lo sguardo in direzione della finestra, e ha cominciato a parlare di sogni senza smettere di solleticarmi il collo. Di sogni come la luna, alla cui luce è possibile mangiare, la sera. E di desideri, che un desiderio bisogna sempre averlo davanti agli occhi, come un asino una carota. Che se un desiderio, qualunque sia, lo si tiene in alto, a una spanna dalla fronte, allora di vivere varrà sempre la pena.
Quando mi sono addormentato, lei stava ancora parlando.
La mattina dopo è partita.”
― Fabio Geda, quote from In the Sea There are Crocodiles: Based on the True Story of Enaiatollah Akbari

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