Terms of Endearment Quotes

“It was inconsiderate, she thought, how blandly people mentioned the future in the sick rooms. Phrases like next summer were always popping out; people made such assumptions about their own continuity.”
― Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment

“Well, we've never had a divorce in our family," Aurora said, "but if we have to have one, Tomas is a good place to start.”
― Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment

“That's one of the only things I look forward to about an evening like this, you know -someone to drink tea with at the end of it. For all I know, the whole point of civilization is to provide one with someone to drink tea with at the end of an evening. Otherwise you have no one with whom to talk over whatever may have happened during the evening. Dinner parties are often more fun to talk about than they are to attend - at least they aren't complete until they've been discussed.”
― Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment

“Understanding is overrated and mystery is underrated. Keep that in mind and you'll have a livelier life.”
― Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment

“Schweppes began to shake his head. “You ever think about night school?” he said. “The oil business is one thing and ladies from Boston, Mass., they’re something else. They’re particular about speech up in that part of the country. You can get away with just so much of that old country-boy talk, an’ then they’re gonna let you know it’s gettin’ old. Right there’s one problem.” Vernon began to feel downhearted. He began to wish he’d left Old Schweppes to Sports Illustrated. It was all beginning to sound like a lawsuit, and one that was going against him. For every advantage he had, Old Schweppes was finding two disadvantages. “She’s already jumped on me about that,” he said. “Schweppes, I can’t go to night school. I’d feel plumb ridiculous.” “Well, if you’ve reached the stage where you’ve got to have a woman, you’re going to feel ridiculous the big part of the time anyway,” Schweppes said. “I was never mixed up with nobody from further east than Little Rock neither. I never said more than howdy to a smart woman in my life, and I still went around feeling dumb half the time. They’re smarter than us—that’s what it boils down to.”
― Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment

“Disgrace abounds, but good dinner parties are rare.”
― Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment

“Aurora could not recall that she had been precisely heartbroken - her heart had never had time to get focused exactly - but for several years thereafter she did feel that life was a comedown in some respects.”
― Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment

“In the whole two years of their marriage she had never said anything similar, anything to indicate that she felt their being together was something less than a part of natural law.”
― Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment

“Indeed, looking back on her twenty-four years of marriage to Rudyard—something, admittedly, that she seldom did—Aurora could not remember a single thing that had been his fault, unless it was Emma, and even that was questionable.”
― Larry McMurtry, Terms of Endearment