Quotes from The Guest Room

Chris Bohjalian ·  336 pages

Rating: (20.9K votes)


“She cringed when she saw she needed a bikini wax - and cringed that she even got them in the first place. It wasn't the pain. It was the whole idea she was raising her daughter in a world where pubic hair was a problem.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Guest Room


“She would hear the verbal balancing act: urgency mixed like gin amid the tonic of consideration.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Guest Room


“crime? I was in trouble because a man had said I was not clean there. He was lying. He only said that because he was not clean there and I told him we should shower before we fucked.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Guest Room


“gentlemen’s clubs—now there was a ridiculous euphemism”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Guest Room


“But if you are a person who needs no one’s approval, you are probably crazy and live alone on an island or the top of a mountain somewhere.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Guest Room



“She had read articles over the years about a man's supposed biological craving for young women: it was all about primeval procreation, in theory, the need to plant seed in fertile soil. Maybe. ... She thought of a line from Nabokov: "Because you took advantage of my disadvantage." Lolita. In this case, however, Kristin felt that she was at the disadvantage - not the young thing. The truth was, she feared, all men were Humbert Humbert. Maybe they weren't pedophiles lusting after twelve-year-olds, but didn't Lolita look old for her age? Older, anyway? Sure, there were MILFs in porn, but Kristin had a feeling that considerably more men wanted their porn stars to be students at Duke University than moms from the bleachers at a middle-school soccer game.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Guest Room


“A moment later, all of the men at the party, stupefied by the way the hooker had gone banshee,”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Guest Room


“If you were Bill Clinton, how did you justify Monica Lewinsky to Chelsea? What did you say about the cigar and the beret and the little blue dress? If you were Anthony Weiner, how in the world did you explain to your daughter your apparently insatiable need to text pictures of your junk to strange women?”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Guest Room


“...this was why men fell in love with strippers and escorts: it wasn't the licentiousness, the dissembling, their craven willingness to do whatever you wanted. It was the way they would, out of the blue, surprise you with the psychic ability to know what you needed.”
― Chris Bohjalian, quote from The Guest Room


About the author

Chris Bohjalian
Born place: in White Plains, New York, The United States
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Popular quotes

“Ooh. Maybe he’ll fuck you in Spanish. Can you call me while it’s happening? God, I want to hear that.”
― Tina Reber, quote from Love Unrehearsed


“She's my friend."
"Good for you."
"Just my luck," I said. "Finally meet my twin brother and, turns out, he's an ass.”
― Kelley Armstrong, quote from The Rising


“Обезглавеният му труп рухна на пода, а заситеният Звяр отново притихна. Суфия стоеше несигурно на краката си и в недоумение примигваше с очи. Тя не знаеше (и откъде да знае?), че измислица или не, един ден всички разкази внезапно свършват; че всепоглъщащият пламък едва сега се разгаря; че когато дойде Съдният ден съдиите също ще трябва да отговарят за деянията си; че Звяра на срама не може дълго да съществува в чуждо тяло, защото се храни, расте, разкъсва обвивката си и накрая се взривява.”
― Salman Rushdie, quote from Shame


“Ay, that I had not done a thousand more.
Even now I curse the day—and yet, I think,
Few come within the compass of my curse,—
Wherein I did not some notorious ill,
As kill a man, or else devise his death,
Ravish a maid, or plot the way to do it,
Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,
Set deadly enmity between two friends,
Make poor men's cattle break their necks;
Set fire on barns and hay-stacks in the night,
And bid the owners quench them with their tears.
Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves,
And set them upright at their dear friends' doors,
Even when their sorrows almost were forgot;
And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,
Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,
'Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.'
Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things
As willingly as one would kill a fly,
And nothing grieves me heartily indeed
But that I cannot do ten thousand more.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Titus Andronicus


“Why in the world was I going to college? I could be in bed, all cuddled up and shit, dreaming about hot men with abs covered in powdered sugar.”
― Jennifer L. Armentrout, quote from Wicked


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