So Old, So Young Quotes

“Lately she had been having this strange experience of waking up in the middle of the night not knowing who she was—that was the only way to describe it. The feeling wasn’t figurative, but literal: when she looked around her bedroom in Tribeca, she didn’t recognize her life. How had she become so old, so young? It was as if she had taken over the body of another character—one who was a wife and a mother—and was now expected to play its part. But recently the lines of dialogue had diminished, and what she had been left with was a set of camera angles and stage directions and a script that she couldn’t remember ever having been given.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young: A Novel

“Inside the house he found the bathroom, where a battery-operated witch cackled as it twirled from an overhead light. Looking at himself in the mirror, he fixed his hair and washed his hands. The liquid soap that was next to the sink was an expensive brand, though when he pumped a dollop of it onto his palms he discovered that Sasha had refilled the bottle with something generic and lemon-scented. Richie sighed: they were all trying so hard.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young: A Novel

“She wished Adam would do it for her, and say something funny about Lev that she could get behind, but she knew that this was unlikely: Adam would never say something cruel for the sake of saying it. Once in a while it would be nice if he could also be a dick.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young: A Novel

“A fragile belief that the agony of consciousness was worth the miracle of being alive.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young

“You’re not a sucker,” Adam had said when she explained what had happened at Alison’s party. “Things didn’t work out. Sometimes that happens.” “I made a fool out of myself. I don’t know why I thought he’d just take me back.” When he heard this, Adam looked at Mia. “Are you more upset because you made a fool out of yourself, or because you’re still in love with him?” Mia didn’t answer the question.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young: A Novel

“Would you move to Washington, DC?” Sasha stopped to look at her. They were walking down West Twenty-Eighth Street. “Me?” she said. “No. No, I wouldn’t. It’s a weird place, like there aren’t enough Italians, or something. But I think you could do well there. I’ve always said you’re very political.” “I’ve never heard you say that.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young: A Novel

“Once, Mia had compared him to a roll of duct tape. He still counted it among the greatest compliments of his life.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young: A Novel

“Sasha looked at him—his broad shoulders, his auburn hair, his blue eyes. She knew that he meant it. He would never ask her to leave a party if she didn’t want to, and it had been that way since they started dating at the beginning of sophomore year. Theo was accommodating and trusting and understanding. He always let her pick what kind of takeout they were going to order; he never came before she did; and he always nodded thoughtfully and took her side when she complained about her mother. She loved him, and she knew she could consider herself lucky, especially when she saw all the assholes her friends dated. She also wished they could occasionally get into disagreements and have public fights at group dinners that made her friends uncomfortable. She wished sometimes he would wait awhile to text her back, or even not text her back at all, and that when they fucked he would pull her hair hard—like, very hard—without being prompted to. She was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with her.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young: A Novel

“She was a human being. No single one of those identities would ever contain her. Instead she was going to wake up every day, and smile at her husband, and privately wonder whether he was the best or worst decision of her life.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young: A Novel

“He had wanted to see people who knew him when he was young, before he got married or had children or signed divorce papers, because he thought that doing so might help him feel a bit more like himself, as opposed to the version of himself that he felt like he had been pretending to be for the last twenty years. But now that he was standing here alone, he considered the possibility that he hadn’t been pretending to be anyone—that instead he had changed in real and unrecognizable ways.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young: A Novel

“It had all happened so quickly. In her late twenties, when everyone was getting married, the transformations were gradual—you had the chance to adjust to someone’s new boyfriend or girlfriend, until eventually it seemed like they had always been there. Babies were different—babies were tornados. The wind picked up, the sky turned green, and suddenly a relationship that had been standing there for twenty years was ripped from the ground and carried away.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young: A Novel

“He could never tell if he wanted to sleep with Richie Fournier, or to be Richie Fournier, or if there was even a difference between the two, and if that’s what it meant to be in love.”
― Grant Ginder, So Old, So Young: A Novel