An Academic Affair Quotes

“I had a doctorate in literary
studies, but I did not have the words to explain what it felt like to be looked at
to be perceived – by Sadie Shaw”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair

“Sincerity, my research had taught me, was often seen as a vulnerability. To earnestly express a feeling was a weakness. It was part of the reason people—including, but not limited to, Professor Christian Fisher—liked to hang shit on romance novels. There was something inherently earnest at their heart: a sincere love and hope and joy that readers often reacted to with the same feelings, a delicate flower that provoked some people to want to crush it.”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair: A Novel

“And on top of that,” he went on”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair: A Novel

“But who would I even be without him to measure myself by?”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair: A Novel

“I can make sensible arguments to myself all day long. There’s something in me that just doesn’t want to listen.” “It’s your dick”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair: A Novel

“But Sadie Shaw had a way of narrowing my focus”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair: A Novel

“If I ever write a romance novel”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair: A Novel

“I was still stuck”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair: A Novel

“Next time you start crying”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair: A Novel

“Joy beyond the walls of the world”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair: A Novel

“This is the least sensible way to solve your problems, she'd said to me the last time I'd given her a fake-dating book. I can think of at least forty-seven better ways these two - she'd smacked the book so hard I thought I saw it flinch - could have solved their problem than pretending to be in a relationship.”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair

“It's not a disaster; it's a dramatic term. It's all through the literature on ancient theater. Four stages: prologue, protasis, epitasis, catastrophe. The catastrophe is the moment when it all hangs on the precipice. If it goes one way, it's a tragedy, and everyone will probably die; if it goes the other, it's a comedy, and everyone will get their happy ending.”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair

“There was a famous narrative theorist named Paul Ricœur who distinguished between "clock time" and "human time." Clock time was measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days: the things we think of as the basic building blocks of time. Human time, though, was measured in events: the basic building blocks of story - and thus, because humans love nothing more than to narrativize their own experiences, of our lives.”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair

“One of the things you had to do all the time as an academic scrounging for jobs and fellowships and grants was craft the narrative of your research career. It was usually called ROPE - Research Opportunity and Performance Evidence - and you had to talk about how much you'd achieved relative to the opportunities you'd had.”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair

“I've been fighting for so long I'm not sure I know how to stop, I'd replied, but I'll try if you will.
I was both a truth-teller and a liar. I didn't know how to stop fighting. And I wasn't going to try.”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair

“I was in love with my wife.
I loved Sadie Shaw more than words could wield the matter, dearer than
eyesight, space and liberty.”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair

“You’re a fighter, sweetie—and you’re not going to give up now.”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair: A Novel

“I will concede,” I said, “that you said a pretty mean thing to your sister. But you’ve spent fifteen years saying mean things to me and I have loved you every second of them anyway.”
― Jodi McAlister, An Academic Affair: A Novel