The Secret Life of Violet Grant Quotes

“I thought, how magical, the first glimspe of snow. By March I would be sick of it, but here in this November instant those tiny flakes swirled with the unspeakable purity of a divine gift.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“Here's the thing about New York, the thing I love most: there is no such substance as silence. If you ever stop talking, and he stops talking, the city takes over for you. A siren forms a distant parabola of sound. A door slams. The old couple in 4A argues over who will answer the telephone. The young lovers in 2C reach an animalistic climax. A million other lives play out on your doorstep, and not one of them gives a damn about your little problems. Life goes on and on and on.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“I wanted the rattle of New York around me, I wanted stink and strangers and the sour dank air of the IRT clutching me to its bosom. I wanted hustle and bustle. I wanted to know that millions of lives were playing out at my doorstep, and not one of them gave a damn about my little problems.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“There is no human test quite akin to the certain expectation of pain.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“You know something? The oddest picture came into my mind just then. I saw Dadums in the chair in the hospital waiting room, cradling my mother’s sleeping head on his lap, raising his finger to his lips so no one would disturb her. And. I heard Violet’s voice in my ears, as kind and clean as water: He loved me as much as it was possible for him to love another person. I thought, out of the blue, maybe this isn’t so hard after all. Maybe”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“You're greedy, her mother had said to her quietly, that last night in New York, as she had packed her things. Greedy and selfish. It's not the knowledge you want, you can have that from your journals. you want to be in the newspapers, you want to be Marie Curie, you wat to think you're different from all of us. That all other women are silly and complacent and conventional, except you, brilliant you.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“What makes you Vivian.' I liked the way he said my name, all throaty on the V's, all stretched to its rightful three syllables.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“one can no longer distinguish between history and reality after the absinthe goes in the punch.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“Ahead, an old barn sheds paint into the grass.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“but here in this November instant those tiny flakes swirled with the unspeakable purity of a divine gift.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“His scorn was so huge, Violet could have reached out and grabbed a fistful of it.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“Why, James? Can’t a girl catch a break once in a while? Does everything have to be so damned difficult?” He slid down next to me, shoulder to shoulder. Violet’s suitcase sat at our feet. “Because it’s life, Vivian. It’s just life, we’re all out for ourselves. It’s the only way you make it through to the end. You get lucky sometimes, that’s all, and you enjoy it while it lasts.” “Poor”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“I subscribed to the general theory that the worst room in the best hotel was better than the best room in a second-rate hotel.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“You have a softa?' 'Somewhere underneath all these boxes.' 'These boxes you won't unpack.' 'I will now.' Again, he gave his words time to settle in and sink to the bone. I listened to the cadence of his breath and stared at the nubby white ceiling. I will now. I will unpack for you, Vivian, because if New York is your home, it must be mine, too.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“...you're dazzling. I'm dazzled, I'm upside down and inside out and...God, Vivian. I don't know what to say. There aren't words. I just want to crawl back under the blanket and spend my life doing that with you. And everything else we did today.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“...she wears a summer nightgown, white cotton trimmed with a token bit of lace at the neck and sleeves. She dislikes the itchiness of the lace against her skin, the sense of delicate entrapment.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“Most of all, Violet will know the smile: a slow and confident widening of a too-abundant mouth. This woman is something more than beautiful, something alchemical, an unstable mixture of rare elements bound together by nerve and charm. Am I interrupting something dreadfully important? she asks, with the ironic warmth of a woman who knows in her bones that she is always the most important object in the room.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“You don't have a civilized self.' 'Yes, I do. Look at me now, quite calm and under control, while you stand right there, a few feet away from me, and the light glows against your skin. Turning you to gold. I don't think there's any higher proof of the power of civilization, that I'm not kissing you senseless.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“You have no idea, do you? No idea what it's like to have no money, no way on God's earth to beg, borrow, or steal it. No idea what it's like to have no choice. No idea what it's like to sit there and stare at the bare walls and realize you've got to do something, and whatever you do, it's the wrong thing. You could take some money, propose to a girl, and break her heart later, and in so doing lose the love of the single most breathtaking woman you've ever met, the love of your lonely godforsaken life.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“Listen to me, Violet. I want more than this. I want to lie next to you at night and worship you. I want to watch you by day and see what you're capable of, you astonishing woman, you bloody beautiful thing. I want to count every scintillation of you.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“She zipped her lips.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“I wish you all the happiness in the world, Frau Grant. I hope our paths meet again.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“All men are brutes.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant