The English Teacher Quotes

“It came to him that he didn't like holidays. . . . They bore down on you. Each one always ended up feeling like an exam . . .”
― Lily King, The English Teacher

“Was it possible in any relationship to not disappoint, to do anything more than only briefly rekindle the initial fatal illusion?”
― Lily King, The English Teacher

“-Can we have one day when we don't have to talk about the meaning of life?
-I don't think we ever talk about anything else.”
― Lily King, The English Teacher

“He had the feeling that something terrible was about to happen, that this was how death happened to everyone: a few hours of joy and then you’re snuffed out for good.”
― Lily King, The English Teacher

“How haven’t I been myself?” Was anything more foreign than this self other people believed you could maintain?”
― Lily King, The English Teacher

“The lunchroom of a high school is a disturbing place. Everyone’s neuroses gather here. The combination of food and voluntary seating releases uneasiness into the air like a gas.”
― Lily King, The English Teacher

“She had that English teacher’s ability to communicate, to draw out meaning, to produce the larger picture. She had taken great interest in his children as characters. But he had expected more from her when they became flesh and blood.”
― Lily King, The English Teacher

“In all the years they’d taught together, she’d felt like a horse he was trying to break. Her falling in love with him seemed to be his prerequisite for friendship. She had never complied, thus they had never been friends, but now he wanted to play jilted suitor, not because he had loved her, but simply because she had not loved him.”
― Lily King, The English Teacher

“They had, every one of them, misunderstood her entire life.”
― Lily King, The English Teacher