American Fantasy Quotes

“That was the part that Sarah resented the most---the fact that there was no universal rating system for shared experiences. What could haunt one person for the rest of their life would be forgotten by someone else.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“It felt dramatic to say it was the last chance ever, but it probably was, wasn't it? That was part of getting older too, looking death in the face and realizing there were certain experiences that weren't going to happen again.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“When Annie was young, she’d often wanted to push the fast-forward button—there were so many things she’d wanted to get to—but now she didn’t see anything ahead. There was nothing between here and the end, only time.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“The magazine had run an interview with a neuroscientist some years ago, a guy who studied the effects of music on the brain, and it had shown that the music one loved in one's youth imprinted on the brain, literally making its own dopamine pathways, which was why people were always dancing in grocery store aisles. They weren't just happy; they were actually high on their own brains. Maybe that was why opera had fewer fans than musical theater---almost no one started listening to opera when they were twelve. Everyone Annie knew would have agreed that music was integral to life and offered a transcendent release from one's otherwise terrestrial existence.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“Annie had never lived alone before the divorce, but now she was used to it and actually enjoyed living by her rhythm and only her rhythm. She hadn’t really thought about how much she would be in a crowd on the ship—it was sort of like commuting through Times Square three times a day, if all the men in New York City had been raptured away.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“All around Annie, women were dancing and singing, and for a second, she closed her eyes and thought, No one else will ever understand this, except of course everyone standing beside her, who all understood it perfectly. This was why people turned to religion or watched the Super Bowl at a sports bar instead of alone in their living room. It felt good to be a part of something where your passion was celebrated instead of mocked. They were all in this together, the men and the women, a symbiotic organism. Annie was tired, but she knew that there was no going to bed, not yet.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return'd, Yet out of that I have written these songs).
---Walt Whitman”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“She could move near her parents in Virginia and save money on rent and hang out at the 9:30 Club and the Black Cat. Sarah was done with pastels.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“Cooking for one was a math problem Annie had yet to solve. Recipes that required too much effort seemed like a waste of time; recipes that produced a whole sheet pan or casserole dish of something seemed like a waste of actual food. She ate leftovers, of course, but one meal often lasted so long that it felt like punishment. One lasagna would haunt her fridge for three weeks. She would learn. She was learning.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“Annie was hungry again, sort of. Her body wasn't reliable in the way it used to be. Her period, her mood, her stomach, her desire. The household had been through puberty so recently, and so Annie knew what it was when it started to happen, sooner probably than friends of hers who assumed they'd be fertile forever. Fertile, like a cornfield, like a pure-bred dog, like a young wife in some religious sect. What she really meant was young. Annie had never thought of herself as young, even when she had been, but regardless, the road to menopause felt like she was being forced to walk the plank into a school of sharks. Final. It was helpful to think of women she knew who had gone through it, women who were not dead: Meryl Streep, Cher. Probably lots of women much younger than them, too, but it felt impolite to guess. It was always this way---by the time you got used to something, it was already over. Sleepaway camp, high school, marriage. A cruise, even.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“The woman had made it to the chorus. It was an Adele song; Keith recognized it now. She threw her head back when she got to the big notes, and the sound escaped into the air, diffusing her powerful voice into the space above her, where it floated, floated, floated up to Keith. He was crying again. Her voice was so big. The song was so good. God, it was nice to remember that songs could do that. The woman finished, and he clapped. No one on the ship had come to see this woman sing. Keith didn't know her name or where she was from or what she did on board when she wasn't playing the guitar to a row of people's backs. She was singing because it moved her. Anyone could see that. Because she had something inside that needed to come out. This was what songs could do. It was the same as a poem, a painting, a dance. The sound wasn't just a sound; it was an expression of the parts of yourself that words couldn't describe.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“Some people claimed that wisdom came with age, but Annie had never found that to be true. Look at all the old people who lost their minds to invented stories on cable news channels, at the people who gave their pensions to strangers who called them on the telephone while they were watching Wheel of Fortune. The only thing that Annie felt better about at fifty was her willingness to admit her own stupidity. Fallibility. Confusion. It was great, actually---getting things wrong didn't feel as bad as it used to. The sun would rise the next day. She was a sturdy person. If the divorce had taught her anything, it was that.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“In opera, when women accepted their fate, it usually meant that they were going to marry someone they didn't want to marry and then kill themselves.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“She didn't know many men who liked costumes. It was funny, the list of things Annie found appealing at fifty that she would never have thought about at twenty-five. Good with kids, bends down to talk to puppies on the street, a polite driver, enjoys puzzles. A green thumb. Didn't belittle her interests. Maybe even shared them.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“With boys, it seemed easier, like everything else. If you pull on this, something comes out. It was a math problem. But no boy had ever given her an orgasm, and nothing she'd ever seen or read or heard as a teenager had given her any instructions, so it took until she was in college with a sweet, patient boyfriend to find out what all the fuss was about. It was something the divorce was giving her space to get used to. That was the point, wasn't it? She didn't need anyone else. She was an island. Islands didn't need other islands to exist.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“So much of being a woman was learning to live with new physical realities. Annie often thought that men---specifically Chris, her ex-husband, but other men too---would be fundamentally improved as human beings if they had to spend a single year living in a female body....To be a man, all you had to do was survive puberty. Annie's body had changed at twelve, then again when she was pregnant, then again after Claudia was born, and then again more recently, into whatever she was now, a woman in her final form. That wasn't counting the weight gain and weight loss of her twenties and forties, the widening of her feet! Feet! Men had no fucking clue.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“Maybe that was what the costumes were about, the goofy T-shirts, but inside her head, which is where she heard the music, it had touched some lever so deep that it couldn't be reversed, as much as she'd chosen to ignore it. Maybe that was nostalgia after all, that the music was a direct vein to her own childhood, the least complicated part of her life. What had the research shown? A shortcut to happiness. Music made plants grow faster; it made cows give more milk. They meant Mozart and Puccini, sure, but why couldn't it also mean this?”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“Feelings are always in motion. This too will pass. She was also getting used to the things that wouldn't pass---being an aging woman, being a divorced woman, being a woman whose child had grown up and left the nest. When Annie was young, she'd often wanted to push the fast-forward button---there were so many things she'd wanted to get to---but now she didn't see anything ahead. There was nothing between here and the end, only time.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“Edward Hopper’s lonely people staring out of the walls of the theater, Jackson Pollock splatters on the lido deck, Andy Warhol behind the bar on Deck 3, Keith Haring– and Jean-Michel Basquiat–themed carpets in the casino, John Singer Sargent portraits in the Amelia Earhart dining room with Peter Max clouds floating overhead. There had briefly been an Alexander Calder–style mobile in the center of the atrium between”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“said to her sister. “Don’t make it sound like I’m going on some quest to avenge you.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“Either way, the music wasn’t the issue. It was the individual people, like going to summer camp and being stuck on a wooden platform in the middle of the woods with eight mean girls who called her a lesbian, which was true but not the way they said it, like it was an insult.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“Cruise ships really were incredible, Annie had to admit, that they could contain so many different environments at the same time, like a zoo with different climates for lions and penguins and tropical birds. It made her feel better about all the ads she’d ever placed for cruises, though the ones that advertised in Opera Weekly were very, very different than this one, she imagined.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“Was it possible to be grateful and miserable at the same time? He was trying to figure it out, life, but no one would let him, no one but Dr. Robert. Everyone was worried about their own stake, their own bank accounts, their own consequences. Being in therapy somehow didn’t help the people around you, even though it felt like it should.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“One did hear stories about men doing better the second time around, with all that testosterone and ambition out of their system. How nice for Emily.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“She’d never been surrounded by women like this, never in her life. She’d never been in a sorority or gone to an all-women school. Even the Women’s March had had significantly more men than this.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“When Madison was small, she had loved Boy Talk—the old pictures, the songs, the dances. Steffani had always poked fun, but now Madison was worse. She made TikTok videos of herself pretending to throw up with Boy Talk playing in the background. Madison had hundreds of thousands of followers, more than Boy Talk did on their official account. Keith slid his phone back into his pocket.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“There was always something about Keith for someone to fix.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“Keith didn’t know where to put everything he felt about Corey—being around him made Keith feel sad and jealous and angry all at once, and that made talking hard, like there were six people living inside his body and each of them fighting over who got to control his mouth.”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy

“When Annie was young”
― Emma Straub, American Fantasy