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101 " Worse, I have to admit to feeling the jealousy of one crab for another that has managed to climb out of the barrel. "
― Richard Russo , Straight Man
102 " …imagination without energy remains inert... "
103 " For people who dealt largely in dreams, his father was fond of observing, realtors were a surprisingly unromantic bunch, like card counters in a Vegas casino. "
― Richard Russo , That Old Cape Magic
104 " He wasn't always trying to say witty things, and when he did say them, he felt no need to repeat them for changing company. "
― Richard Russo , Mohawk
105 " ... Mr. Purty has cheered me up. The task he has chosen for himself, of wooing my mother with a bright red pickup truck, a Patsy Cline tape, and a string of malapropisms, is ample justification to me for not taking the world too seriously, its relentless heartbreak notwithstanding… (Richard Russo, Straight Man) "
106 " Miles couldn't help admiring women for their ability to dismiss the evidence of their senses. If that's what explained it. If it wasn't simply that from time to time they were unaccountably drawn to the grotesque. "
― Richard Russo , Empire Falls
107 " These are not men of great imagination, but one can hardly blame them for not being prepared for this particular contingency, the sight of a tweet-jacketed, tenured, middle-aged, senior professor and department chair in a fake nose and glasses, brandishing a live, terrified goose... (Richard Russo, Straight Man) "
108 " Hell, at twenty, he’d been ready to junk everything and start over too. But now, at sixty, he was less willing to throw things away that could be patched together and kept running for a few more months. He wanted to keep going forward, not stop and turn around and analyze the validity of decisions made and courses charted long ago. "
― Richard Russo , Nobody's Fool (Sully #1)
109 " Whereas some people’s attitude suggested that perhaps they knew something you didn’t, Mrs. Whiting’s implied that she knew everything you didn’t. She alone had been paying attention, so it was her duty to bring you at least partially up to speed. "
110 " probably horse doo had a name in french also, but that didn't mean god intended for you to eat it. "
111 " Was anything in the world truer than that intuitive leap of the heart? "
112 " You've become a clever man. "
113 " Rub wiped his nose on his sleeve. “I just wisht—” “What?” Rub sighed. Where to begin? “That I’d be nicer to you?” He shrugged again, but this was the gist of it, Sully could tell. “I wish I would, too,” he said, and for some reason this seemed to cheer Rub up. "
― Richard Russo , Everybody's Fool (Sully #2)
114 " The nurse who came in to take her blood was the same one who’d taken her blood pressure earlier, and she slapped the flesh on Miss Beryl’s arm with some annoyance, as if she’d have preferred it to assume some other shape. Miss Beryl knew just how the woman felt. "
115 " Also her perfume, which mingled with the crisp air off the lake below, creating an intoxicating mixture of damp earth and leaves and water and girl. Not woman, in Sully’s opinion. Girl. "
116 " I also think it’s possible for us to be better people tomorrow than we are today.” He had no idea, of course, whether any of these things were true, in whole or in part. Still, what possible good could come of believing otherwise? — "
117 " He was an amiable man who believed in amiable solutions, who forgave easily and couldn’t understand that other people derived pleasure from withholding the very thing he always gave so freely. "
― Richard Russo , Bridge of Sighs
118 " The problem with the contemplative life was that there was no end to contemplation, no fixed time limit after which thought had to be transformed into action. Contemplation was like sitting on a committee that seldom made recommendations and was ignored when it did, a committee that lacked even the authority to disband. "
119 " Griffin’s mother loathed grading papers, too, of course. Who didn’t? But she was meticulous about correcting errors, offering style and content suggestions in the margins, asking pointed, often insulting, questions (How long did you work on this?) and then answering them herself (Not long, one hopes, given the result). "
120 " ...the truth is, we never know for sure about ourselves. Who we'll sleep with if given the opportunity, who we'll betray in the right circumstance, whose faith and love we will reward with our own. Only after we've done a thing do we know what we'll do...Which is why we have spouses and children and parents and colleagues and friends, because someone has to know us better than we know ourselves. "