“Things fifty years old or older are considered ‘antique.’ Anything thirty years old to fifty is called ‘vintage.’


“Martha says I never looked odder or uglier, but you know I’ve always thought beauty a curse and am more than happy to dispense with it completely. Sometimes I forget that I’m a woman—at least—I forget to THINK OF MYSELF AS A WOMAN. All the obligations and comforts of womanhood seem to have nothing to do with me now. I’m not sure how I am supposed to behave and I’m not sure I would, if I knew.”
― The Essex Serpent
― The Essex Serpent

“had been Ashok’s idea that Edie vet the “American” names the Switchboard team had adopted as part of their “cultural training,” a practice that began just in time to prevent one “Randy Stallion” from picking up the overnight Switchboard line”
― Under the Bus
― Under the Bus

“The Gong lived in the Pit. It made a loud, brassy "nnnnnnngggggggggg" that set everyone's teeth on edge. Any deal over 50K per annum, the salesman got to take a whack at it, so that the whole company would know he’d landed a big fish.”
― Under the Bus
― Under the Bus

“You scrape yourself out of bed, exhausted from all you tried to do over the weekend, from trying to waste not so much as a quarter of an hour of the two days allotted for your real life. The life you were supposed to have is lived in tiny slices of time between each night’s dinner and sleep, and in those two precious days you pay for by working the other five for someone else’s dreams.”
― Under the Bus
― Under the Bus

“People talk about the happy quiet that can exist between two loves, but this, too, was great; sitting between his sister and his brother, saying nothing, eating. Before the world existed, before it was populated, and before there were wars and jobs and colleges and movies and clothes and opinions and foreign travel -- before all of these things there had been only one person, Zora, and only one place: a tent in the living room made from chairs and bed-sheets. After a few years, Levi arrived; space was made for him; it was as if he had always been. Looking at them both now, Jerome found himself in their finger joints and neat conch ears, in their long legs and wild curls. He heard himself in their partial lisps caused by puffy tongues vibrating against slightly noticeable buckteeth. He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.”
― On Beauty
― On Beauty

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