Susan Breen > Quotes

“She had been trying to be honest with him, thinking her honesty would be winsome and that he would come to rescue her family, forgetting what she later learned as a writer: that to be honest is to open yourself up to people thinking you're crazy.”
― Susan Breen, The Fiction Class

“Her descriptions will be incandescent, perfect little nuggets of phraseology, and there will probably be lots of sex in her writing - the clinical type of sex with labias and clitorises and tongues going everywhere.”
― Susan Breen, The Fiction Class

“It was almost 3:00. Two hours until dinner and six hours until bed. Not that she was regimented. “It’s too much, isn’t it? I knew I shouldn’t ask.” “Hold on,” Maggie said. “It’s just I was surprised.” “You’ll do it, then,” Helen Blake gushed. “Would you really? That would be such a help. I would owe you for the rest of my life.”
― Susan Breen, Maggie Dove

“place for Maggie to sit, but she didn’t want to. She crossed her arms. She wondered if Noelle was taking her question seriously, and then the woman spoke. “His first wife uses Ecstasy,” she said. “She uses it a lot.” “She’s a drug addict?” “No,” Noelle said. “No, she has Parkinson’s. She uses it to treat her Parkinson’s. She”
― Susan Breen, Maggie Dove

“his eyes. He touched her hand lightly. “You’ve been struggling for a long time. You must be exhausted.” She felt like he was seeing into her soul. She felt the strangest feeling”
― Susan Breen, Maggie Dove

“right thing, but they weren’t sure what it was. So better to say nothing at all. She wanted to comfort people,”
― Susan Breen, Maggie Dove

“out they had to walk up four flights of stairs, and she couldn’t help chuckling as she listened to Frank wheezing behind her. When they got to the landing, she saw his hair had flattened out. He peered into the metal plate on the door, fluffing up his hair, until the door creaked open and Char Bender stood before them. Bender’s first wife looked fragile, like a bomb had gone off alongside her and she’d been dealing with the reverberations for some time. She was thin, the knobs of her neck stuck out. She looked gray. Grieving for Bender? Maggie wondered. Hard to imagine she was mother to a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old. Not hard to see what Bender would have found appealing in Noelle’s sleek vitality.”
― Susan Breen, Maggie Dove