Atmospheric Disturbances Quotes

“We need to develop a better descriptive vocabulary for lying, a taxonomy, a way to distinguish intentional lies from unintentional ones, and a way to distinguish the lies that the liar himself believes in – a way to signal those lies that could be more accurately described as dreams. Lies – they make for a tidy little psychological Doppler effect, tell us more about a liar than an undistorted self-report ever could.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

“I’d consider it profession enough to have streaky bleached hair, to wear a green scarf, to spill spicy teas, to walk (slightly) unevenly on high heels. What more is there to give to the world than that? I realize this sentiment of mine is currently considered appalling, but these days I find the popularity of ideas even more meaningless than ever before.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

“Though my initial progress did not look or feel like progress, I believe it was a kind of progress, that of just staying in place, of not slipping backward into despair.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

“If a story seems too random, or perhaps too brilliant, for a "madman" to have conceived of it himself, then consider that the "author" might be reality and the "madman" just the reader. After all, only reality can escape the limits of our imagination.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

“I was having so much fear," the simulacrum said, kissing my eyelids and I couldn't help but think about the eyelid kissing, and how this is a thing Rema always liked to do, and though I understand that eye lid kissing is a fairly standard part of any amatory repertoire, I remember how it really needled me at the beginning, needled me for being a sort of learned behavior, which therefore pointed to that whole world that was Rema before I knew her, and pointed to all those people who were not me who had gone into the creation of her as she was, and-well, in that way she was like some alien sedentary rock forma tion, some meteor fallen to my planet, and it seemed a violation of me to have no choice but to love some charred castaway, with all its strata-I guess I am very jealous and possessive_I just found it very diffi cult those moments, like eyelid kissing, when I couldn't help but perceive her duplicity, her triplicity.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

“She didn't have what one would call a "profession," but I didn't know why she particularly wanted one; it seemed like she'd been infected by a very American idea of identity, to think that who you were mostly consisted of what you did to get paid—that seemed silly to me.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

“I wonder if I talk like a dead man. My daughter once came home from school very excited about some lecture -this was years ago, before I died, though just right before- and she said her English teacher had talked about what the dead sound like in Dante. This funny thing about Dante's dead, which is that they know the past, and even the future, but they don't know the present. About the present they have all these questions for Dante. And that somehow is what being alive is, to be suspended in the time. She seemed to feel that really meant something. That and also that the dead know themselves better than the living do.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

“The room was too much there. I could feel the color of the wallpaper -- burgundy -- invading.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

“So,' I said, partly to Magda, partly to myself, 'Rema left Argentina with this An-a-to-le person.' I adopted the four-syllable pronunciation with confidence, feeling myself an Hercule Poirot: it was near the end of the story, the suspects were in the room.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

“I have mentioned my patient Harvey, but I have failed to properly discuss him and the odd coincidence, or almost co-incidence, of his having vanished just two days before Rema did. So, actually, most likely not a 'coincidence.' In retrospect I feel confident that the seeds of tragedy were sown in what I had originally misperceived as a (kind of) light comedy of errors.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

“Then the nurse did turn to glance, and then stare—actually stare—at me. His look made me feel as if I was green, or whistling, or dead.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances

“When is talking about literature not an evasion of the real question at hand? Although a nice-enough evasion.”
― Rivka Galchen, Atmospheric Disturbances