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The Debutante QUOTES

The Debutante QUOTES

1 " We forgive not because it’s easy or the right thing to do, but that the choice to forgive is in itself powerful. It’s an affirmation, a willingness to take life on life’s terms. And a privilege that no one can take from you. It "

― Kathleen Tessaro , The Debutante

2 " The family that had once welcomed him and been his as well, especially after his father deteriorated, took a step back. And he found he was instantly isolated, separated by their loyalty to Julia. No one ever said anything directly; no acknowledgement was ever made of how she was found. They were grieving the loss of their sister, their child. He was alone in grieving the loss of his marriage as well. The gap widened. An unspoken hostility grew between them, built from the unsaid words; a kind of defensiveness on both sides, which gradually hardened into a wall. Had they believed he had something to do with her infidelity? That he’d driven her to it through some neglect or unfaithfulness of his own? Had she confided in them about her lack of marital satisfaction? And so it spread outwards like a kind of web; extending to embrace her friends – friends he’d thought of as belonging to him too until they struggled to make eye contact with him at the funeral or no longer bothered to ring. He hadn’t been the one who’d cheated. But he was the one who felt punished for the affair. The one who was left. ‘It’s time you moved on,’ people began to say, as little as six months later. ‘You need to let go of that now.’ Yes, he needed to let go of it, accept it, and endure the increasing indifference of those he thought had loved him. He needed to grow up, get on. Life wasn’t fair. Who ever said life was fair? So she cheated. Time to get a girlfriend; buy a house…start again. Yet "

― Kathleen Tessaro , The Debutante

3 " There is not one part of me that won’t shrink and die without you. There is not one moment when I will not regret the very air I breathe. I am inadequate, a complete failure in the very task of loving and yet I love you. I love you. Badly. Stupidly. As clumsily and as greedily and as hopelessly as a child. And I would not, for all the world, have you believe otherwise. I am broken. "

― Kathleen Tessaro , The Debutante

4 " The dawning of morn, the daylight’s sinking, The night’s long hours still find me thinking, Of thee, thee, only thee.’ Huge "

― Kathleen Tessaro , The Debutante