“The children were overwhelmingly morbid. Not a single adult asked me where butterflies go when they die, but this question was more popular than pixie sticks with the under-four-foot set. I cursed parents for not preparing their children. When I was five, my mother and sister sat me up on the kitchen counter and explained the facts of life: the Easter Bunny didn't exist, Elijah was God's invisible friend, with any luck Nana would die soon, and if I ever saw a unicorn, I should kill it or catch it for cash. I turned out okay.”
― I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays
― I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays
“It is my belief that people who speak of high school with a sugary fondness are bluffing away early-onset Alzheimer's. ”
― I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays
― I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays
“It's not that you have lost touch with these people. You haven't. It's just that they have kept in such close touch with each other. When scrolling through your cell phone, you generally let their numbers be highlighted for a second, hovering, and then move along to people you have spoken to within the last month. It's not that you're a bad friend to these people. It's just that you're not a great one. They know the names of each other's coworkers and the blow-by-blow nature of each other's dramas; they go camping in the Berkshires together and have such sentences in their conversational arsenal as "you left your lip gloss in my bathroom." You have no such sentences. Your connection to your friends is half-baked and you are starting to forget their siblings' names, never mind their coworkers. But you're still in the play even if you're no longer a main character.”
― I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays
― I Was Told There'd Be Cake: Essays
“Time grabs you by the scruff of your neck and drags you forward. You get over it, of course. Everyone was right about that. One mathematically insignificant day, you stop hoping for happiness and become actually happy.”
― How Did You Get This Number: Essays
― How Did You Get This Number: Essays
Kate’s 2025 Year in Books
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