Uncommon Arrangements Quotes

“She once complained that her stories were like ‘birds bred in cages,’ but that concentrated atmosphere, that claustrophobic hothouse of emotion, was her talent. Her stories were little masterpieces of compression: she succinctly contained whole lifetimes in a few pages, every moment loaded with as much as it could bear.”
― Katie Roiphe, Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939

“Dryden’s original play, Marriage à la Mode, included the lines: “Why should a foolish marriage vow/ which long ago was made/ Oblige us to each other now/ When passion is decayed?”
― Katie Roiphe, Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Portraits of Married Life in London Literary Circles 1910-1939