The White Rose Quotes

“In her new, albeit fragile, mood, this letter does not unduly distress her. One lesson she has learned is that any opinion expressed by a person who does not understand how to use an apostrophe may be disregarded with impunity.”
― Jean Hanff Korelitz, The White Rose: A Novel

“The pain between them at this moment is more intimate than anything that has come before. It is also, incidentally, more intimate than anything she has shared with her fiancé. It is devastating.”
― Jean Hanff Korelitz, The White Rose: A Novel

“For Oliver it has always been flowers, the food not only of love but of life. Flowers to look at, to smell, to be alive with in their brief life spans—they are their own seat of pleasure, endlessly giving. He does not understand people who do not love flowers, or who consider them merely ornamental for the home, like an accent pillow or a Hummel figurine. He does not understand people who assault flowers for their essence, which they rub over their skin like a spoil of war, leaving carcasses of slaughtered blossoms in their wake. He knows that these are extreme, dramatic views, which is why he does not often share them, but it does baffle him that in a world so bereft of pleasure people fail to see that flowers are a part of the solution, that the unlearned lesson of their loveliness bears on the great disconnect between people and other people, between people and the earth, between people and the eternal”
― Jean Hanff Korelitz, The White Rose: A Novel

“by the first year of college it had begun to trouble Sophie that she had never felt remotely histrionic herself. Her romantic history has been one of contrived enthusiasms and falsified ardor, with sex serving as a pretense of intimacy. She has felt no hunger, no longing for the quick of another person. She has not experienced even one of those astonishing moments when two people own the desire between them and lunge for each other. Fortunate in so many ways, Sophie understands that she has not been gifted in this one, and as a result, over the years she has compiled a commonsensical list of her requirements in a partner and reached the following conclusions about herself: That she is not a very sexual person. That she is unlikely to experience, in the future, the kind of rapturous attachment she has not experienced in the past. That she enjoys the company of men. That she wants to be a mother, and fairly soon. That apart from becoming a mother, which will of necessity alter everything about her life, she does not wish to alter anything about her life.”
― Jean Hanff Korelitz, The White Rose: A Novel

“I’ll tell you,” says Oliver, “when I know you better.”
― Jean Hanff Korelitz, The White Rose: A Novel

“He might have apprenticed himself to one of these people, but he was impatient, so he began by dropping into restaurants in the late afternoon, casually introducing himself to managers and sometimes chefs, offering to do their flowers. Most were curt, but Oliver had charm, and often enough he found himself at a bare table with a cup of tea and a couple of serious, nodding men, showing them photographs of flowers and containers and making notes about their color preferences, heights, shapes, and prices. During this period he created his arrangements on a plastic sheet stretched on the floor of his studio, and when they were done he transported them to their destinations in a child’s red wagon, the vases wedged tightly and the flowers wrapped against the wind. After the first month, he’d accumulated eight regular clients and a host of sporadic customers. He added office lobbies, doctors’ offices, two clothing shops, and an antique store on Bleecker Street. He began to leave business cards beside his arrangements, with the new address optimistically printed and his current phone number. He began to get calls. All of which made him ever more impatient for his own home.”
― Jean Hanff Korelitz, The White Rose: A Novel

“He does not understand people who assault flowers for their essence, which they rub over their skin like a spoil of war, leaving carcasses of slaughtered blossoms in their wake. He knows that these are extreme, dramatic views, which is why he does not often share them, but it does baffle him that in a world so bereft of pleasure people fail to see that flowers are a part of the solution, that the unlearned lesson of their loveliness bears on the great disconnect between people and other people, between people and the earth, between people and the eternal.”
― Jean Hanff Korelitz, The White Rose: A Novel