Home > Work > Manhattan Beach
21 " As she worked, Anna glanced occasionally at the Flossie Flirt doll wedged at the end of a shelf. She had wanted one so violently two years ago that some of her desperation seemed to have broken off and stayed inside her. It was strange and painful to discover that old longing now, in this place. "
― Jennifer Egan , Manhattan Beach
22 " Lust made an idiot of everyone it touched—Dexter felt stupidity shrouding his head like a hood in the shape of a dunce’s cap. "
23 " We work in the realm of the impression.” Nell hailed a taxi and directed the driver to East "
24 " Trouble is,” Mr. Q. breathed, “you open a channel . . . now it exists. Hard to regulate what . . . passes through or . . . what direction it . . . moves.”Dexter said nothing. What the hell was he getting at?“This may be your . . . blind spot. "
25 " It had been years since she’d fabricated a story from whole cloth. It brought a sense of returning to an earlier time when she was questioned more often and had fewer evasions at her disposal. Besides, she thought, looking into Rose’s relieved and joyful face, people practically told you the lies they wanted to hear. "
26 " corrupt interloper bluffing her way through her life. "
27 " She’d never been good at banter; it was like a skipping rope whose rhythm she couldn’t master enough to jump in with confidence. The war seemed not to exist here, despite the presence of officers in uniform. "
28 " Let me tell you something, dearie: the world is a closed door to an unwed mother and her illegitimate child. If "
29 " He hungered for a sense of progress, of new things approaching while old familiar ones receded. It seemed far too long since he’d had that sensation. "
30 " Problems he couldn’t solve made him angry. "
31 " He was of no more consequence than an empty cigarette packet. "
32 " At times the brusque mass of everything that was not him seemed likely to crush Eddie into dust the way he crushed the dried-out moths that collected in piles on the protectory "
33 " Maintaining an appearance mattered as much—more—than what was underneath. The deeper things could come and go, but what broke the surface would be lodged in everyone’s memory. "
34 " He'd take danger over sorrow every time. "
35 " Dunellen was childless, an oddity in this milieu, where the average man had between four and ten offspring. "
36 " He wore a thin silk scarf—little more than a cravat—and a bowler, but he was famously, almost comically hardy. Dexter had never seen him sweat even wearing a dinner suit in dead summer. He’d a quick knifelike walk that required Dexter to stride in earnest to keep up, although he was several inches taller. "
37 " The twins had brought along Buck Rogers ray guns, but the wind turned their shots and death throes into pantomime. "
38 " There were rumors at the high school of girls who’d had to depart suddenly to “live with relations.” One of these, Loretta Stone, was now a year behind her peers: a chastened solitary girl whose alleged ruin was a succulent dish the other children feasted upon. "
39 " One thing was certain: Rose had been wrong about the world becoming small again. Or at least it would not be the same small world it had been. Too much had changed. And amid those shifts and realignments, Anna had slipped through a crack and escaped. "
40 " Sure enough, the toughness he’d sensed coiled in Ed Kerrigan had flowered into magnificence in the dark-eyed daughter. Proof of what he’d always believed: men’s children gave them away. It was why Dexter rarely did business with any man before meeting his family. He wished his Tabby had gone barefoot, too. "