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61 " She’d been drinking jug wine steadily for four hours. "
― Jonathan Franzen , Purity
62 " The world was overpopulated with talkers and underpopulated by listeners, and many of her sources gave her the impression that she was the first person who’d ever truly listened to them. "
63 " The only decoration on the gray segments of her cubicle was a bumper sticker, AT LEAST THE WAR ON THE ENVIRONMENT IS GOING WELL. Her colleagues’ cubicles were covered with photos "
64 " because, no matter how he’d come to hate her, he was also, even now, trying to impress her and win her praise, bringing her his Bertrand Russell papers as mother-flattering evidence of his outsize intellect, constructing his rhyme schemes. "
65 " Was there anything more sweetly existential than the walking done for sex in the most desolate of streets at three in the morning? The casual slaughter of a reasonable sleep schedule? The strangeness of passing someone’s hair-curlered mother in a bathrobe on your way to her heartrendingly hideous bathroom? "
66 " Qué hermosa es siempre la cara que no hemos visto. "
67 " The mark of a legitimate revolution—the scientific, for example—was that it didn’t brag about its revolutionariness but simply occurred. Only the weak and fearful, the illegitimate, had to brag. "
68 " I was very young, and so I know,” my mother said. “I know what can happen.” “We’re not you,” Anabel said. “That’s what everyone thinks,” my mother said. “They think they’re not like other people. But then life teaches you some lessons. "
69 " You need closeness with other people. And how is closeness built? By sharing secrets. Colleen "
70 " She didn’t need to see more people, she took money from hundreds of people at the bakery, men who stared at her indecently, old women who tweezed coins from cloth pouches as if picking a nose with thumb and finger. "
71 " Have you ever been tempted to leave a thought unspoken?” “I’m a writer, baby. Voicing thought is what I’m poorly paid and uncharitably reviewed for. "
72 " A silence fell. Frogs in the night were calling, calling, calling. "
73 " They’re all about being the special one, the chosen one. ‘Only you can save the world from Evil.’ That kind of thing. And never mind that specialness stops meaning anything when every kid is special. I remember watching those movies and thinking about all the unspecial characters in the chorus or whatever. The people just doing the hard work of belonging to society. They’re the ones my heart really goes out to. The movie should be about them. "
74 " Love turned out to be soul-crippling, stomach-turning, weirdly claustrophobic: a sense of endlessness bottled up inside him, endless weight, endless potential, with only the small outlet of a shivering pale girl in a bad rain jacket to escape through. Touching her was the farthest thing from his mind. The impulse was to throw himself at her feet. "
75 " seemed as if the Internet was governed more by fear: the fear of unpopularity and uncoolness, the fear of missing out, the fear of being flamed or forgotten. "
76 " Secrets are the way you know you even have an inside. "
77 " His life was much fuller than hers, and the breathing space this gave her was welcome. If she wanted his complete attention again, all she had to do was put his hands on her body; he was not undoglike himself in this regard. "
78 " I considered, quite seriously, strangling her to death while I fucked her and then throwing myself in front of the 8:11 bus. The idea was not without its logic and appeal. But there were the bus driver’s feelings to consider … "
79 " My practical intelligence said no, but my heart said yes. "
80 " The rage inside him was titanic. How to keep from exploding? What a relief exploding was. "