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The Magician's Assistant QUOTES

The Magician's Assistant QUOTES

1 " Nothing comforted Sabine like long division. That was how she had passed time waiting for Phan and then Parsifal to come back from their tests. She figured the square root of the date while other people knit and read. Sabine blamed much of the world's unhappiness on the advent of calculators. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

2 " If you've had good gin on a hot day in Southern California with the people you love, you forget Nebraska. The two things cannot coexist. The stronger, better of the two wins. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

3 " I don’t want to wind up some old woman who talks to her rabbit,” she said to Rabbit, who was chewing so furiously he didn’t even bother to lift his head. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

4 " People made her tired. The way they were easy with one another, the way they seemed so natural, only made her sad. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

5 " espaliered "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

6 " For twenty-two years Sabine had told her stories to one person, so that the action and the telling had become inseparable. What was left was half a life, the one where she lived it but had nothing later to give shape to the experience. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

7 " The general wisdom around here is if you can’t get it at Wal-Mart, you don’t need it.” Sabine looked up at the brown building, which was itself the size of another parking lot. “I’ve never actually been in one of these.” “Go on,” Kitty said. Sabine shook her head. “I’ve just never had any reason to.” Kitty stubbed out her cigarette and replaced her mitten. “Well, you are in for a treat. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

8 " Kitty stopped the cart and put in two three-packs of paper towels. “Sale.” Sabine nodded. Was $2.49 a good price? To know if paper towels were a deal this time, you’d have to remember what they cost last time. Sabine could never remember. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

9 " Nothing comforted Sabine like long division. That was how she had passed time waiting for Phan and then Parsifal to come back from their tests. She figured the square root of the date while other people knit and read. Sabine blamed much of the world’s unhappiness on the advent of calculators. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

10 " to never have to look at someone who was remembering when you have made such a concerted effort to forget. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

11 " He began the patter, the Ladies-and-gentlemen-I-want-to-welcome-you-to. Dot and Bertie Fetters sat forward in their seats, so thrilled to be entertained that for the moment they forgot that the purpose of their trip was to mourn. But then that was the point of magic, to take people in, make them forget what was real and possible. They were so utterly game that when Sam Spender asked if there was anyone in the audience from out of town, they raised their hands, not knowing that everyone in Los Angeles was from out of town. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

12 " She could read the patterns, knew at a glance a Melas from a Konya, a Ladik from a Sivas. She loved the Ladik. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

13 " She put no stock in dreams. To her they were just a television left on in another room. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

14 " I don’t want to wind up some old woman who talks to her rabbit,” she said to Rabbit, "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

15 " The idea that she would have the opportunity to get over something thrilled her. The "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

16 " ...Nebraska was white, a page as still as fallen snow. It was not crosshatched with roads, overrun with the hard lines of interstate systems. It was a state on which you could make lists, jot down phone numbers, draw pictures. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

17 " If someone were to have pressed a sheet of glass down over the top of Alliance, Nebraska, in winter, it would have resembled an ant farm. Everything was a tunnel eaten neatly, carefully into the snow. The tunnel of the streets branching into the narrower tunnels of driveways and carved-out sidewalks. The snow banked over cars, lawn furniture, porches, like frozen animal carcasses stored for future need. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

18 " She didn’t even think about the drive. She was from Los Angeles; driving was simply part of it. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

19 " And what I think is that this belief I had was what ruined everything. That's the thing that kept me from going out and finding him, this idea that when he was ready he was going to come and find me. That's the thing I've lost, that excitement, the nervousness I had from waiting. So just when I stopped waiting, that's when you came. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant

20 " When you’re young and you want to have a baby because babies are so cute and everybody else has one, nobody ever takes you aside and explains to you what happens when they grow up. Maybe they all think it’s obvious. I mean, if you know enough about biology to know where babies come from, then you should know that sooner or later they turn into teenagers, but somehow you just don’t ever think about it, then one day, bang, you’ve got these total strangers living with you, these children in adult bodies, and you don’t know who they are. It’s like they somehow ate up those children you had and you loved, and you keep loving these people because you know they’ve got your child locked up in there somewhere. "

― Ann Patchett , The Magician's Assistant