← Fiction

The Motion of the Body Through Space

by Lionel Shriver · 2020

In Lionel Shriver’s entertaining send-up of today’s cult of exercise—which not only encourages better health, but now like all religions also seems to promise meaning, social superiority, and eternal life—an aging husband’s… more

14 quotes ★ 3.73 (5,818) Fiction

Quotes from the Book

It's just, people throwing around fashionable lingo think they're so hip and imaginative. But you can't be hip and imaginative. You can be unhip and imaginative, or hip and conformist.
4
I did not love running. Here's a pointer for you: no one does. They pretend to, but they are lying. The only good part is having run. In the moment, it's dull and hard as in effortful but not as in difficult to master. It's repetitive. It does not open the floodgates of revelation, as I am you've been led to expect.
3
I did not love running. Here’s a pointer for you: no one does. They pretend to, but they’re lying. The only good part is having run. In the moment,
2
How much kinder it would have been, to turn off, like an appliance. The gradual, drawn-out corruption of the body while its host was still trapped inside was a torture of a sort they would have contrived at Guantanamo, or Bergen-Belsen. Every old age was an Edgar Allan Poe story.
2
1980s. The acquisition racked up yet another substantial expense, for Remington had fallen prey to the very American impulse to lavish money on what could not be bought.
1
The very best thing about getting old was basking in this great big not-giving-a-shit.
1
as self-satisfaction, and their contentment came across as exclusionary.
1
how curious it was that couples with the largest families were so frequently the very people least capable of supporting them,
1
the only good things about getting old was mutual permission to be imperfect.
1
She herself was only sixty, though hers was the first generation to append "only" to such a sobering milestone.
1
Your honeybunch may not be able to make you feel all warm and gooey inside anymore," Deacon said. "But the ability to fuck you up, well--it's the last magic power to go.
1
We can be world-beaters, and run whole companies, and then claim to be traumatized by a hand on our knee when helplessness is politically useful.
1
did not love running. Here’s a pointer for you: no one does. They pretend to, but they’re lying. The only good part is having run.
1
The expectation that, if not virtue, then at least good practice would necessarily be rewarded was naive, but that didn't alter the ferocity of the feeling - that

About Lionel Shriver

We have collected 131 quotes from 6 books by Lionel Shriver on BookQuoters.

More about the author →

About the book

In Lionel Shriver’s entertaining send-up of today’s cult of exercise—which not only encourages better health, but now like all religions also seems to promise meaning, social superiority, and eternal life—an aging husband’s sudden obsession with extreme sport makes him unbearable.After an ignominious early retirement, Remington announces to his wife Serenata that he’s decided to run a marathon. This from a sedentary man in his sixties who’s never done a lick of exercise in his life. His wife can’t help but observe that his ambition is “hopelessly trite.” A loner, Serenata disdains mass group activities of any sort. Besides, his timing is cruel. Serenata has long been the couple’s exercise freak, but by age sixty, her private fitness regimes have destroyed her knees, and she’ll soon face debilitating surgery. Yes, becoming more active would be good for Remington’s heart, but then why not

Book details

First published
2020
Genre
Fiction
Goodreads rating
3.73 (6k ratings)

The buzz

Keep reading