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Only you and your darkness know who you are. —Amber Tamblyn
Without people to live there, to give it voice and a heartbeat, the house had fallen into disrepair.
I’m sure I’ll do something stupid enough to make you homicidal. Husbands usually do, if pop culture has taught me anything.
when a moment turned serious or somber, he remained open and honest. He didn’t realize how rare that was, and she cherished him for it.
The peace he always gave her—that was the reason she had fallen in love with him.
Kate and Tommy wanted a better life, simpler, where they could put their happiness and the quality of their life above work.
this was the opposite of marital trouble. It was a shared striving for the future.
they both believed that earlier generations had it right—a slower life, a smaller circle, a focus on home.
They were starting a new life, and the last thing they needed was to carry the clutter of the old one along with them.
I’ll sweat out the bad stuff, she thought. Toxins, pollution, extra pounds.
nobody nursed a grudge better than a Sicilian. It was their third-greatest skill, right behind gossip and cooking.
It was the sort of silliness that grew between couples, that might cause others to roll their eyes but which became part of the weave that bound them together.
It was all he had ever wanted from his own marriage, the comfort and joy of really knowing your spouse and loving them for who they were, and having them return that honest love.
Things were quieter at night. Hurtful words hurt more, and doubts cut more deeply.
Even the darkest moods could be improved with sunlight and fresh air.
New acquaintances sometimes made the mistake of thinking her a naturally tidy person, but that was an illusion created by the fact that she did not typically allow anyone into her personal space unless that space had been cleaned and neatened up.
she disliked starting a project if she knew she did not have time to finish.
‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’
Tommy’s mother had been a woman full of love and ambition who would do anything for her son, as long as it did not require her to admit her own flaws. Pushy and condescending, the old woman had fancied herself a masterful manipulator, and she tried to control everyone around her.
Yes, he’d been raised Catholic, but he considered himself in recovery from that upbringing and had no intention of ever suffering a relapse.
He believed in God, but he didn’t believe in organized religion. It had been used as a bludgeon or a veil of secrecy far too often for his tastes.
she felt very iffy on the subject of God. She just didn’t like the social pressure and the judgment that went along with it.
The Tuscan pear on ice was even tastier than it sounded, combining pear-flavored vodka, orange juice, ginger liqueur, and Limoncello, with mint leaves and a slice of pear for garnish.
Dying was a process, something people did slowly in hospitals or in their beds at home. Death itself was something different. It could be sudden, often violent, but it could also arrive in the quiet way of otherwise ordinary people who destroyed themselves with alcohol and lost consciousness in lonely bus stations while their organs failed them.
It always amazed him how so many problems could be overcome simply by turning something off and then on again.
“I’m happy it’s raining, though. I always feel like days like this are meant for staying in bed, having breakfast for lunch, and watching old movies.
The idea of life without her scared him more than anything else he could imagine.
The aroma of fresh paint filled the room, and he liked that—felt it was auspicious—the smell of new beginnings.
She had thought the church’s position on demons and exorcism to be ridiculous and pandering to their most gullible faithful to keep them frightened of evil, and thus obedient to the church.
As long as they could both laugh, they could get through anything.
There were places bustling with people where it was possible to feel a part of something greater. A triumphant concert. A darkened theater. An Irish pub when the music began to play. A wedding, in the moment of the first kiss.
a busy hospital must be the loneliest populated place on the planet. You could feel alone almost anywhere, but rarely with so many people surrounding you.
The constant noise—the buzzing of alarms on medical machinery, the dinging of signals only the staff understood, the ringing of phones—that was bad enough. But the smell was worse, the layer of antiseptic cleaner and air freshener on top of the stink of human waste, rot, and slow decay. The smell of sickness and dying.
“I envy Europeans that lack of urgency. It’s an American disease,”
Nobody’s in a rush to define us by where we work or how much we earn.
“Dumbass. You’re my people.”
I have you,” she said. “You’re my family.”
To be able to pass off insidious behavior as the influence of some malevolent force, some poison in the soul, seemed designed for human beings to avoid blame. Demonic possession was mental illness and “the devil made me do it” just something psychopaths said in court when trying to avoid the death penalty.
When it came to death and religion, it was all guesswork. All superstitious nonsense.
There’s never been a better marketing campaign for God than the invention of the Devil, and demons are just little lowercase versions.”
“All my life, I’ve said I don’t believe in ghosts, demons, angels, UFOs, or gods, but I want to believe in all of them. I just need to see one, to know it, to feel the tangible reality of being in the room with something beyond the natural world.
