The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

There are people who see a beautiful flower and rush over to pick it. They want to hold it in their hands, they want to own it. They want the flower’s beauty to be theirs, to be within their possession, their control. Don wasn’t like that. At least, not at first. Don was happy to be near the flower, to look at the flower, to appreciate the flower simply being.

Here’s the thing about marrying a guy like that—a guy like Don Adler, back then. You’re saying to him, “This beautiful thing you’ve been happy to simply appreciate, well, now it’s yours to own.”

Intimacy is impossible without trust. And we would have been idiots to trust one another.

Be wary of men with something to prove.

But the truth is, praise is just like an addiction. The more you get it, the more of it you need just to stay even.

You have to find a job that makes your heart feel big instead of one that makes it feel small.

People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth. When you realize you can tell someone your truth, when you can show yourself to them, when you stand in front of them bare and their response is “You’re safe with me”—that’s intimacy.

Women who collected rare jewels seemed exactly the same as men who were desperate to have just one night with me. The world was about objects to them; all they wanted to do was possess.

Sometimes reality comes crashing down on you. Other times reality simply waits, patiently, for you to run out of the energy it takes to deny it.