6
" rabbis knew best. The marvelous warmth and intimacy of your ceremonies tonight! Even the little family quarrel only made things more lively. It gave the evening—well, tang. I was going to say bite, but I’d better not.” He paused skillfully for the laugh. “The little Hagada, with its awkward English and quaint old woodcuts, has been a revelation to me. I’ve suddenly realized, all over again, that I’m part of a tradition and culture that go back four thousand years. I’ve realized that it was we Jews, after all, with the immortal story of the Exodus from Egypt, who gave the world the concept of the holiness of freedom "
― Herman Wouk , Marjorie Morningstar
13
" They could take a religion apart and show how it ticked, but they couldn’t put it back together so it would work for anybody. I mildly suggested that the day was past, maybe, when religion could work for any educated person. She flared a bit; said religion still worked for a hell of a lot of people. She said her parents would never have survived the death of Seth without it, and that she didn’t know whether she and Milton could have stayed in one piece after the baby died if they hadn’t had their religion. At this point I was probing, perhaps cruelly, to strike bottom. I said, “Well, Margie, maybe that only proves the power of a dream.” Like a flash she answered—and her voice sounded just as it did in the old days, full of life and sparkle, “Who isn’t dreaming, Wally? You?” The fireworks started around then, all green and golden and red, over the sound. "
― Herman Wouk , Marjorie Morningstar
16
" Shirley doesn’t play fair, you see. What she wants is what a woman should want, always has and always will—big diamond engagement ring, house in a good neighborhood, furniture, children, well-made clothes, furs—but she’ll never say so. Because in our time those things are supposed to be stuffy and dull. She knows that. She reads novels. So, half believing what she says, she’ll tell you the hell with that domestic dullness, never for her. She’s going to paint, that’s what—or be a social worker, or a psychiatrist, or an interior decorator, or an actress, always an actress if she’s got any real looks—but the idea is she’s going to be somebody. Not just a wife. Perish the thought! She’s Lady Brett Ashley, with witty devil-may-care whimsey and shocking looseness all over the place. "
― Herman Wouk , Marjorie Morningstar
17
" She didn’t waver or change countenance at all; she continued her grave descent. But in an instant, as though green gelatins had been slid one by one in front of every light in the ballroom, she saw the scene differently. She saw a tawdry mockery of sacred things, a bourgeois riot of expense, with a special touch of vulgar Jewish sentimentality. The gate of roses behind her was comical; the flower-massed canopy ahead was grotesque; the loud whirring of the movie camera was a joke, the scrambling still photographer in the empty aisle, twisting his camera at his eye, a low clown. The huge diamond on her right hand capped the vulgarity; she could feel it there; she slid a finger to cover it. Her husband waiting for her under the canopy wasn’t a prosperous doctor, but he was a prosperous lawyer; he had the mustache Noel had predicted; with macabre luck Noel had even guessed the initials. And she—she was Shirley, going to a Shirley fate, in a Shirley blaze of silly costly glory. All this passed "
― Herman Wouk , Marjorie Morningstar
18
" I’ll tell you, Margie, most of those things you say are worth having, I don’t know about. You have a better education than I did. Music, books, wine, art, all that—I’ll tell you, I think if you’re happy they must be nice to have, but if you’re unhappy they don't help much. The main thing is happiness. "
― Herman Wouk , Marjorie Morningstar
