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21 " I fell in love with him, and it made no sense for me to fall in love with him. We could not possibly have been more different. But maybe that’s where love grows best—in the deep space that exists between polarities. "
― Elizabeth Gilbert , City of Girls
22 " The world just happens to you sometimes, is what I think. And people just gotta keep moving through it, best they can. "
23 " Those girls are on the road to trouble,” I heard an older woman say about us one night, as we were staggering down the street drunk—and that woman was absolutely right. What she didn’t understand, though, is that trouble is what we wanted. Oh, our youthful needs! Oh, the deliciously blinding yearnings of the young—which inevitably take us right to the edges of cliffs, or trap us in cul-de-sacs of our design. "
24 " Aperson only gets to move to New York City for the first time in her life once, Angela, and it’s a pretty big deal. Perhaps this idea doesn’t hold any romance for you, since you are a born New Yorker. Maybe you take this splendid city of ours for granted. Or maybe you love it more than I do, in your own unimaginably intimate way. Without a doubt, you were lucky to be raised here. But you never got to move here—and for that, I am sorry for you. You missed one of life’s great experiences. New York City in 1940! There will never be another New York like that one. I’m not defaming all the New Yorks that came before 1940, or all the New Yorks that came after 1940. They all have their importance. But this is a city that gets born anew in the fresh eyes of every young person who arrives here for the first time. So that city, that place—newly created for my eyes only—will never exist again. It is preserved forever in my memory like an orchid trapped in a paperweight. That city will always be my perfect New York. "
25 " I always hated hearing old people yammering on like this when I was young. And I do what to assure you: I'm aware that many thing were not better in the 1940s. Underarm deodorants and air-conditioning were woefully inadequate, for instance, so everybody stank like crazy, especially in the summer, and also we had Hitler. "
26 " Of course nobody is required to stand in the field of honor...If you find it too challenging, you may always exit, and then you can remain a child. But if you wish to be a person of character, I'm afraid this is the only way. But it may be painful. "
27 " (“Everyone should leave the table feeling as if they’ve gotten a bad deal,” my father once taught me joylessly. “This way, you may rest assured that nobody was taken for a ride, and that nobody can get too far ahead.”) "
28 " Resist change at your own peril, Vivian. When something ends, let it end. "
29 " OLIVE WASN’T THE SORT OF PERSON WHO SEEMED TO FEEL THAT THE AIR NEEDED TO BE CONSTANTLY FILLED UP WITH WORDS "
30 " Nothing will uproot your life more violently than true love—at least as far as I’ve always witnessed. "
31 " I MYSELF HAVE CLUNG TO EXISTENCE LIKE A BARNACLE TO A BOAT BOTTOM "
32 " Then my mercy swelled, and for just a moment I felt mercy for everyone who has ever gotten involved in an impossibly messy story. All those predicaments that we humans find ourselves in - predicaments that we never see coming, do not know how to handle, and then cannot fix. "
33 " The world is always changing. Learn how to allow for it. Somone makes a promise, and then they break it. A play gets good notices, and then it folds. A marriage looks strong, and then they divorce. For a while there's no war, and then there's another war. If you get too upset about it all, you become a stupid, unhappy person—and where's the good in that? "
34 " Sometimes it's just true that other people have better ideas for your life than you do. "
35 " Go out there and love them hard... "
36 " Hush,” she said. “I’m thinking at the top of my lungs. "
37 " At that point, Frank seemed to run out of words. There was somebody that he'd reminded me of, as he was spinning out his story and struggling to explain himself. Then I realized: it was myself...when I had desperately tried to talk my way out of something that could never be put right. He was doing the same thing I had done. He was trying to talk his way into absolution. In that moment, I felt overcome by a sense of mercy...for that younger version of myself...Then my mercy swelled, and for just a moment I felt mercy for everyone who has ever gotten involved in an impossibly messy story. All those predicaments that we humans find ourselves in - predicaments that we never see coming, do not know how to handle, and then cannot fix. "
38 " After a certain age, we are all walking around this world in bodies made of secrets and shame and sorrow and old, unhealed injuries. Our hearts grow sore and misshapen around all this pain—yet somehow, still, we carry on. "
39 " I'm just so weary, Vivian. But I love this kid so much, sometimes I think it will break me in half. Is that the dirty trick? Is this how they get mothers to ruin their lives for their children? By tricking them into loving them so much? Maybe. It's not a bad strategy. "
40 " There's something about a showgirl that always breaks my heart. Youth and beauty-they're such a short lease, girlie. "