We Need to Talk About Kevin

by Lionel Shriver

what had really grown monotonous was the world in my head, what I thought and how I felt and what I said. The only way my head was going truly somewhere else was to travel to a different life and not to a different airport.

Sheer obstinacy is far more durable than courage, though it’s not as pretty.

Fatherhood hadn’t disappointed you; I had. You thought you’d married a trooper. Instead your wife was proving a whiner, the very peevish sort

“When you’re putting on a show, you don’t shoot the audience,” he said smoothly, rolling something in his right hand.