Home > Author > Rumaan Alam
41 " The world was over, so why not dance? The morning would come, so why not sleep? An end was inevitable, so why not drink, eat, enjoy the moment, whatever it contained? "
― Rumaan Alam
42 " They couldn’t know that the silence that seemed so relaxing in the country seemed so menacing in the city, which was hot, still, and quiet in a way that made no sense. Nothing matters to children but themselves, or perhaps that is the human condition. "
― Rumaan Alam , Leave the World Behind
43 " What the fuck?” This was, maybe, the only proper response. Amanda was not talking to George. She was not talking to anyone. “What the fuck?” She said it a third time, a fourth time, a fifth time, it didn’t matter. She kept saying it, and it was unanswered, as a prayer. "
44 " she can tell by their uniforms. It takes a million people to make life run the way it should run. Everyone has their own part to play in it. "
― Rumaan Alam , Rich and Pretty
45 " Huck is hardworking, sure, but it’s possible to view his rise as evidence of something else—luck; right time, right place; the indomitable spirit of a certain kind of white man. Arriving "
46 " She couldn’t imagine loving someone so much that you mourned their absence even in their presence. "
― Rumaan Alam , That Kind of Mother
47 " You are either the sort of person who shapes society, or the sort of person whose life is affected by the shape of society. "
48 " Home was just where you were, in the end. It was just the place where you found yourself. "
49 " She seems okay. I seem okay. Everything seems okay. But it also seems like a disaster. It also seems like the end of the world. "
50 " But maybe it’s good, to remember that, that happily ever after is for television shows. Real romance, real marriage—life has so many little disappointments, all these paths you never thought you’d take. "
51 " She has to return the bedsheets that she bought online because she buys everything online, but they feel terrible, and so she stuffed them back into the box they’d come in, borrowed the tape gun from one of the guys at the messenger center, and sealed it up, and the box is sitting under her desk, a persistent reminder that she’s out eighty-nine dollars until she can stomach standing in line at the post office with the local sociopaths. "
52 " Her children were called Beckett and Otto and toddled around on the back lawn naked. Ruth didn’t understand their names or the fact that they had foreskins, but she kept this to herself. "
53 " To be a mother was to bake. "
54 " bent at the waist like a yogi contemplating the toilet, then something that felt like a belch but burned in the back of the throat, and the release. The vomit was thin and pink as a flamingo (get it?). "
55 " that when I gave in to motherhood I found it a lot simpler "
56 " It took unimaginable courage to kill your children. Few people could manage it. "
57 " What a marvel, to have a body, a thing that contained you. Vacation was for being returned to your body. "
58 " Hard to discern even to her whether she wanted to or felt she had to. She did like cooking, but was that because convention forced her into the kitchen until she’d learned to enjoy time spent there? "
59 " You told yourself it was sleeping through the night, then weaning from the breast, then walking then shoelaces then reading then algebra then sex then college admissions then you would be liberated, but this was a lie. Worry was infinite. A parent’s only task was to protect his child. "
60 " You're going to call me hysterical, a word people - men - use for women. Cassandra had, of course, been right about Troy. "