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1 " Pretty bows on a pile of sh$t only make it harder to flush. "
― Kimberly McCreight , A Good Marriage
2 " That’s the hardest part about marriage, isn’t it?” Zach went on. “Somebody else’s problems become your own. It doesn’t always feel fair. "
3 " And in the end, wasn’t that the key to marriage? Learning to pretend that a few unspoiled things could make up for all the broken ones. "
4 " I’d been so foolish to think love could change the essential nature of anything. "
5 " It’s so simple at the beginning. You meet someone gorgeous and smart and funny. Somebody who’s better than you—you both know it, at least on some level. You fall in love with them. But you fall even more in love with their idea of you. You feel lucky. Because you are lucky. Then time passes. You both change too much. You stay too much the same. The truth worms its way out, and the horizon grows dark. Eventually all you’re left with is somebody who sees you for who you really are. And sooner or later, they hold up a mirror and you’re forced to see for yourself. "
6 " I don't think you can pretend your way through anything. Closing your eyes won't stop the bad things from finding you. "
7 " Forgiveness is a side effect of love "
8 " It was sad that she couldn't remember more. That was the problem with closing off so much of her past - sometimes the good memories went with the bad. "
9 " It’s so simple at the beginning. You meet someone gorgeous and smart and funny. Somebody who’s better than you—you both know it, at least on some level. You fall in love with them. But you fall even more in love with their idea of you. You feel lucky. Because you are lucky. Then time passes. You both change too much. You stay too much the same. The truth worms its way out, and the horizon grows dark. Eventually all you’re left with is somebody who sees you for who you really are. And sooner or later, they hold up a mirror and you’re forced to see for yourself. And who the hell can live with that? So you do what you can to survive. You start looking for a fresh pair of eyes. "
10 " Unlike a lot of couples, we didn’t pretend to be perfect. We were honest about our flaws, and truthful was so much better than perfect. "
11 " Besides, when you were married to an alcoholic, you got tired of excavating details. Don’t ask, don’t tell. It was easier that way to pretend you had absolutely zero role in anything that happened to you. Or not you. Me. That was what I had always done—wipe away the inconvenient facts to keep my eyes on the prize: forward momentum. "
12 " I promise to be your light home" was his last vow. And in so many ways, meeting Sam had been a flare shot off, startling me awake and blazing a trail through my darkness. And yet, we'd ended up so hopelessly lost. "
13 " Time deepens friendship, Sarah said. Romances, eh, not so much. "
14 " Not to sound like a jerk, but when you get to a certain point financially, money becomes more of an administrative detail. "
15 " Seeing him across a room still made my heart pick up speed. My life had begun again when I met him. And yet none of that meant we should stay together. I'd been so foolish to think love could change the essential nature of anything. "
16 " Learning to pretend that a few unspoiled things could make up for all the broken ones. "
17 " I was always so willing to accept anything that might get us back to that perfect place where we’d begun. "
18 " Zach liked to be prepared. That way he could pretend to be charming. He was good at it, provided there was something in it for him and it was for a limited period of time. Because Zach was acting like a normal person, and that took effort. In the end, maybe it was only this that he and Amanda had in common: the pretending. "
19 " You fall in love with them. But you fall even more in love with their idea of you. You feel lucky. Because you are lucky. Then time passes. You both change too much. You stay too much the same. The truth worms its way out, and the horizon grows dark. Eventually all you’re left with is somebody who sees you for who you really are. And sooner or later, they hold up a mirror and you’re forced to see for yourself. And who the hell can live with that? "
20 " I hope so. "