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41 " The shit always builds up, and surviving it is the key, but this I will not learn for many years. "
― Miranda Cowley Heller , The Paper Palace
42 " There is no such thing as unforgivable between people who love each other. But even as I’m thinking it, I know it’s not really true. "
43 " The best lesson my mother ever taught me: there are two things in life you never regret—a baby and a swim. "
44 " The shit always builds up, and surviving it is the key... "
45 " Be like Venus rising on a half shell, lips demurely closed, even her nakedness modest. "
46 " It's painfully beautiful,' I say. 'Just so we are clear,' he says, 'I will never love anyone the way I love you. "
47 " like a "
48 " He sighs. “Mary and I are engaged. We’re getting married in March.” “You just met her.” “I know it’s soon, but Mary says there’s no reason to wait. We love each other.” “Wow.” A piece of greasy dumpling rises in my throat. “I need you to tell me it’s okay.” “You’re pathetic.” I slam down the phone. “That went well,” Peter says. "
49 " wander down the hallway to our old bedroom off the kitchen. It is exactly as it has always been: our twin beds made, our favorite children’s books still on the shelf, a red tobacco tin filled with crayon stubs. I know if I go into the guest bathroom and reach up blindly onto the top shelf above the toilet I will find a pack of menthol cigarettes, hidden where she thinks no one will find them. The most wonderful thing about my grandmother, among many wonderful things, is that everything is always the same. The lovely lemon-wood smell of the house, the little bottles of ginger ale pushed to the back of the icebox for hot days. The silver thimble her mother gave her when she was a girl, nestled in a lavender box on her bureau. "
50 " I love Gina. But I carry you in my bloodstream. This isn’t a choice. "
51 " There are times when I want to tear him limb from limb, but that’s probably the definition of marriage. Toilet paper can lead to World War III. "
52 " I could be hitchhiking into town with a serial killer and she wouldn’t notice. "
53 " Seals are quite extraordinary. They can drink salt water and distill it into fresh. They separate out the salt in their urine. "
54 " I’m in love with you, too,” I say. “But I’m not sure it matters. "
55 " Seals are quite extraordinary. They can drink salt water and distill it into fresh. They separate out the salt in their urine. I wrote a paper "
56 " We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. —Percy Bysshe Shelley, “To a Skylark "
57 " Our parents drank gin from jelly jars and disappeared into the darkness beyond the fire’s glow to kiss their lovers in the tall beach grass. "
58 " Unhappy people are always more interesting "
59 " Nice is the enemy of interesting "
60 " My husband is a handsome man. Not beautiful, but handsome in an old-fashioned movie star way. Tall. Elegant. British. A respected journalist. The kind of man who looks sexy in a suit. An Atticus. Patient, but formidable when angered. He can keep a secret. He rarely misses a beat. He’s looking at me now as if he can smell the sex on me. "