The Chaperone Quotes

“The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend, and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also drag you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“That's what spending time with the young can do—it's the big payoff for all the pain. The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend, and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also drag you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“She was a lover and a lewd cohabitator, a liar and a cherished friend, an aunt and a kindly grandmother, a champion of the fallen, and a late-in-coming fighter for reason over fear. Even in those final hours, quite and rocking, arriving and departing, she knew who she was.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“You don't belong here if you are unhappy," she continued. "Your mother makes you hateful, and you make her hateful. It doesn't matter if she's your mother. It's an accident of birth. It doesn't have to mean so much."..."You belong where you have the best chance of being happy...”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“Men don’t want candy that’s been unwrapped. Maybe for a lark, but not when it comes to marriage. It may still be perfectly clean, but if it’s unwrapped, they don’t know where it’s been.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“Schopenhauer writes about marriage. He says getting married is like grasping blind into a sack of snakes and hoping to find an eel.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“She was every Cora she'd ever been: Cora X, Cora Kaufmann, Cora Carlisle. She was an orphan on a roof, a lucky girl on a train, a dearly loved daughter by chance. She was a blushing bride of seventeen, a sad and stoic wife, a loving mother, an embittered chaperone, and a daughter pushed away. She was a lover and a lewd cohabitator, a liar and a cherished friend, and aunt and a kindly grandmother, a champion of the fallen, and a late-in-coming fighter for reason over fear. Even in those final hours, quiet and rocking, arriving and departing, she knew who she was.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“compassion is the basis of all morality.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“He was right to insist. If they put her on a train,”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“Was it mad to at least try to live as one wished, or as clost to it as possible? This life is mine, seh would think sometimes. This life is mine because of good luck. And because I reached out and took it.
-Cora”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“...I am supposed to be where I go."
-Joseph”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“They were still out on the sidewalk of West Eighty-sixth Street, the taxi pulling way, when Louise put down her travel bag, raised both arms and declared herself in love with New York City. 'It's exactly as I imagined it!' She let her arms fall and looked out at the street, at the honking, halting parade of cars, headlights bright in the dusking air. She turned to Cora with glistening eyes. 'I've always known it, my whole life. This is where I'm meant to be.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“I am supposed to be where I go.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“understanding that her aunt Cora was not a hateful person, just an old woman with tainted language.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“Dance was a visualization of divinity, a way for dancers to realize that they were not in their bodies—their bodies were inside of them.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“She would owe this understanding to her time in New York, and even more to Louise. That's what spending time with the young can do--it's the big pay-off for all the pain. The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend, and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also dray you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“1920’s Fashions from B. Altman & Company (Dover Publications”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“is where I was born,” he said. “Only that. I am supposed to be where I go.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“All these girls had thrown away their corsets, claiming liberation, but apparently, they weren’t supposed to eat.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“Mother Kaufmann had never played any kind of game with her. She was always busy, always getting something done. She got the fire going under the big tub to wash the clothes and sheets; she killed chickens with the clothesline before hanging them by their feet on the hook for plucking; she shoveled manure; she strained milk; she gathered eggs; she washed the strainers and the milk pails; she cooked the meals and canned pears and asparagus; she hauled in water to wash the dishes; she sewed tears in clothing.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“I read for the language, not the story.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“She had it cut like that when they moved here years ago. It’s too short and severe, a horrible look, in my opinion, not feminine at all. But even so, I have to say, she’s a very pretty girl. Prettier than her mother.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“Louise? Oh, you would remember. She doesn’t look like anyone else. Her hair is black like Myra’s, but perfectly straight like an Oriental’s, and she wears it in a Buster Brown.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“That's what spending time with the young can do - it's the big payoff for all the pain. The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend, and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also drag you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“It scared her to think how much her life’s ease and happiness had been granted by chance. Earle could have been killed of course—but even more than that, she could have been born anywhere in the world, and to anyone, she and her loved ones suffering in ways she could barely fathom when she listened to the international news. This”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“but even more than that, she could have been born anywhere in the world, and to anyone, she and her loved ones suffering in ways she could barely fathom when she listened to the international news.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“That's what spending time with the young can do -- it's the big payoff for all the pain. The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend, and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also drag you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“To someone who grows up by the stockyards, that smell just smells like air. You don’t know what a younger person might someday think of you, and whatever stench we still breathe in without noticing.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“pale eyes, and a pointy nose. A gingham bonnet covered her hair. “Hello,” she said to Cora. Both the man and the woman crouched low, their faces level with hers. Cora could not cough or pretend to be slow: one of the agents was right there, watching. The man asked her name, and she told him. He asked her age, and she said she didn’t know, but that she’d just lost her first tooth. Both the man and the woman laughed as if Cora had said something terribly funny, as if she were one of the children singing the Jesus song, trying hard to be cute. She gave them a hard look, but they continued to smile. The man looked at the woman. The”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone