The Divorce Papers Quotes

“We make enemies, sometimes through no fault of our own, and sometimes our enemies become badges of honor.”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“Our marriage ended because I couldn’t make him see me or hear me or do anything I wanted or needed. I could only be as selfish and mean as he was to get his attention. And that was ruinous.”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“More says to him, ‘I can understand a man giving up his soul for the world, Richard, but for Wales?”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“What is it Woody Allen said? I am at two with Nature.”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“I know I’m a difficult parent, bruised and bruising.”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“functions of a caretaking parent, such as bathing and putting her to bed at night, making doctors’ appointments for her and taking her there, arranging playdates and parties for her, attending school conferences, coaching her at sports, providing her with religious education, making her meals, buying her clothes, and the like.”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“res ipsa loquitur,”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“termagant,”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“virago,”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“harridan,”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“vituperative”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“the 5 basic food groups: fat, salt, sugar, alcohol, tobacco):”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“epistolary”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers

“I don't want anyone else but sometimes, surprisingly, there's someone, not the prettiest or the most available, but you know that in another life it would be her. Or him, don't you find? A small quickening. The room responds slightly to being entered. Like a raised blind. Nothing intended, and a long way from doing anything, but you catch the glint of being someone else's possibility, and it's a sort of politeness to show you haven't missed it, so you push it a little, well within safety, but there's that sense of a promise almost being made in the touching and kissing without which no one can seem to say good morning in this poney business and one more push would do it.

-The Real Thing (London 1982), p.73

Today, I bought a copy of the play at the co-op, I thought I should send it to you- out of a sort of politeness.”
― Susan Rieger, The Divorce Papers