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1 " Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. —Margaret Atwood "
― Chris Bohjalian , The Flight Attendant
2 " a smart girl is nobody’s pushover and nobody’s foe. A smart girl is both sword and smile. "
3 " Remember that person you wanted to be? There's still time. "
4 " It’s a terrible era when idiots are allowed to govern the blind, "
5 " She knew the truth of men and women and booze: it rarely ended well for either gender, but it was the women who wound up raped. "
6 " ...The plain unvarnished reality that we cannot escape who we are and most of the time we die as we lived. "
7 " She knew that most men desired her because she was attractive and she was smart, but also because she was a drunk and she was easy. This one? She hoped for his sake he wasn't as different as he seemed, because she always disappointed those men quickly or broke their hearts over time. "
8 " , sometimes you just have to bury the dead and move on. "
9 " Supposedly, whatever we do that's selfish goes with us to the grave; whatever we do that's selfless lives on. "
10 " Remember that person you wanted to be? There’s still time. "
11 " Remember that person you wanted to be? There’s still time.” She wanted to believe that; she wanted to believe it almost desperately. She wanted to be different from what she was—to be anything but what she was. But every day that grew less and less likely. Life, it seemed to her in the back of the cab, was nothing but a narrowing of opportunities. It was a funnel. "
12 " read Carlo Levi? "
13 " A smart girl is nobody's pushover and nobody's foe. A smart girl is both sword and smile. "
14 " Elena believed that reportage like that might be compelling and beautiful, but it would never gain traction in the Age of the Troll. In the Age of Mass Shootings. In the Age of the Suicide Bomb in the Crowd. "
15 " You want to know the definition of a consultant? A guy who borrows your watch to tell you what time it is. "
16 " Did you ever read Carlo Levi?” “No.” “You should—if you like Tolstoy. He wrote beautifully about Italian peasants. My people, once. He had a soul like Tolstoy. ‘The future has an ancient heart.’ I think I have that right. "
17 " She needed water, but it would take a tsunami to avert the hangover that awaited. She needed Advil, but she feared the red pills that she popped like M&M’s at moments like this were distant. They were in the medicine bag in her own hotel room. In her own hotel. "
18 " Cassandra, Troy-born daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, knew the future, and no one believed her. At least most of the time that was what occurred. Apollo gave her the great gift of prophecy because he was confident that she was going to sleep with him; when, in the end, she refused, the god spat in her mouth, leaving behind the curse that no one would ever believe a word that she said. And so she lived with frustration and dread. "
19 " Cassie saw another member of the flight crew approaching, a fellow a bit older than her named Justin who had pulled on a pair of blue jeans and a white oxford shirt. At least she presumed he had gotten dressed again. She wondered if he often slept naked when he traveled, like some of her friends who flew, because it meant not packing pajamas. Or maybe his body ran hot (like hers), and he liked the feel of cool sheets against his skin when he fell asleep. Maybe he liked the erotic charge. Certainly some nights she did. "
20 " Thursday night. "
