Status Updates From Follies

"Life is empty, there is no hope. Hope doesn't grow on trees: we make our own and I am here to tell you it's the hardest thing we'll ever do."

"Oh dear God, it is tomorrow..."

"I left the dishes in the sink, I left them there, I was in such a hurry and there is no Ben for me, not ever, any place."

"But I never said I loved you, did I?"

"There's no one in my life; there's nothing. That's what's killing me...God, I see lovers on the streets--it's real, it's going on out there and I can't reach it. Someone's got to love me and I don't care if it doesn't last a month, I don't care if I'm ludicrous or who she is or what she looks like, I don't care."

"I would give--what have I got?--my soul's of little value, but I'd give it to be twenty-five again."

"I've still got time for something in my life. I want another chance. I'm still young and I'm talking to the walls. Where are you?"
"Right where you are, and it's yes to all your questions. Yes, I loved you once and yes, I play around and yes, I have regrets and God, yes, one more day with you-"

"Ben, I don't want to be old."
"Who does, for God's sake?"
"Me. I did. I used to count the days. I couldn't wait til we were old enough so nothing mattered anymore."

"You cleft my heart."
"I cleave it. Cleft is past."
"Damn right. You don't much cleave it any more."

"I used to wish that life were work and sleep and nothing else, that I could go from bed to desk to bed again; and now I look at what I do and I find it meaningless."

"One makes bargains with one's life. That's what maturity amounts to. When we're young and every road looks clear, we take them all, ignoring Newton's laws of motion, going every way at once...so I learned to be an artist with my life. I constantly select, as if each day were a painting and i had to get the colors right. We're careful of our colors, Ben and I, and what we've made is beautiful."

"I used to wonder but I never knew for sure. Times change. It might have mattered once."

"But acts are real, they happen, and I met you, didn't I?"

"1941? When I see pictures of myself back then, I think 'somebody's put a stranger in my scrapbook.''

"Sure, I think about the past. A lot, I guess. Don't you?"
"There's not much to think about."

"I've been devoting my attention to beginnings lately. I wanted something when I came here thirty years ago but I forgot to write it down and God knows what it was."

"I sometimes wonder why our memories don't go the way these walls have gone. Our bodies do: our plaster flakes away and yet the fool things we remember stay as fresh as paint."

"This book is meant for Julia and it comes to her with love."
Sometimes a dedication in a book is just <3 <3 <3