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Everyone, she understood, was mainly and mostly interested in themselves. Except Sibby had been interested in her, and she had been terribly interested in him. This was the skin that protected you from the world—this loving of another person you shared your life with.
Interested in self, but 2 interested in each other the world bearable.
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Lucy Barton had her own shame; oh boy did she have her own shame. And she had risen right straight out of it. “Huh,”
made me feel better, it made me feel much less alone.”
no. No, we’re always alone.”
not always alone.”
yeah.” Karen-Lucie put a hand to her mouth. “Yvie, I was betrayed. Bee-trayed. I want you to know that.”
What is Thomasina's relationship to Karen-Lucie? Girlfriend? Wife? Why does she say this?
don’t know what anything means in this whole world.
Making meaning for yourself. How many others share?
took off, and she left him this place, and we’re glad to have it.” “I don’t understand anything,” Angelina said finally. “No. I don’t either.”
We understand nothing when it comes to the motivation of others
Angelina knew this, she knew she would always be the child—but briefly a ceiling had been raised; she pictured her mother’s quick and gracious loveliness to that man on the street: A street in a village on the coast of Italy, her mother, a pioneer.
Living your life from the heart.
others didn’t seem to mind, or even really to notice, people being, as Dottie knew, mostly very involved with themselves.
Self-involvement tantamount.
They left the house, which is what everyone who came there did: leave.
Self-involvement in spades!
She came to understand that people had to decide, really, how they were going to live.
Key theme of this book.
so thespian,” her father murmured in a voice coated with distaste. “No, I’m not,” she said, because she thought he had said “lesbian.”
Just plain funny!
Her grandmother said, “Don’t come back. Don’t get married. Don’t have children. All those things will bring you heartache.”
The lot of a woman was always dull and heartbreaking.
Currents of treachery and deceit seemed to run everywhere; the forms they took always surprised her.
Motivations and intent don't always predict behavior. A sharp observer, this author is.
was the moment onstage when she knew she had left the world and fully joined another. Not unlike the feelings of ecstasy
And for a moment Annie wondered at this, that her brother and sister, good, responsible, decent, fair-minded, had never known the passion that caused a person to risk everything they had, everything they held dear heedlessly put in danger—simply to be near the white dazzle of the sun that somehow for those moments seemed to leave the earth behind.
Passion drives life but may be risky.
It seemed to Abel that everyone was loudly reciting a line, and this caused him discomfort, as though he’d not be able to leave the theater without thinking that everyone he met was reciting a line. Surely going to the theater should not have that effect on a person.
This is what many people do rather than being genuine.
society’s been drugging its women for years—”
Keeping women in their place.
At sixteen he had learned the astonishing power of money. The only thing money could not buy was a friend for Dottie (or for him, but that did not matter as much), but it bought a twinkling bracelet, that’s what she got! And that had made her smile. Most of all, money bought food.
Learning the visceral
“I can be awfully insensitive. And then I get pissed off at people because I myself am sensitive. I don’t like sensitive people who only feel sensitive for themselves.”
Antithetical but powerful!
