Standard Deviation Quotes

“Fun. Wasn't that really the beauty of childhood? That you measured experiences by how much fun they were, not by how much work or inconvenience or tedious conversation they caused you? Of course you didn't think of the tiresome things if you were a kid, because you didn't have to do them.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“It occurred to Graham that here, finally, was the similarity between the two women he’d chosen to marry: they were both totally unrufflable, one out of iciness, the other out of obliviousness.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“And yet, he knew Audra did genuinely feel the loss of these conversations, of any conversation that she didn’t get to have.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“People in love were happy because being in love blocked all the other emotions out.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“He glanced across the table at Elspeth and their eyes caught for a second, like two coat hangers before you shake them free of each other.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Maybe in some relationships there was so much history that fondness and guilt and curiosity and familiarity remained separate elements and could never be melted down into friendship.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Here they were grocery shopping in Fairway on a Saturday morning, a normal married thing to do together— although, Graham could not help noticing, they were not doing it together. His wife, Audra, spent almost the whole time talking to people she knew—it was like accompanying a visiting dignitary of some sort, or maybe a presidential hopeful—while he did the normal shopping.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“but underneath Matthew was still Matthew. And then Graham understood that it was almost too late. He had spent so much time wishing Matthew were different, wondering how to make Matthew different, when it was actually the process of living that did it. Life forced you to cope. Life wore down all your sharp corners with its tedious grinding on, the grinding that seemed to take forever but was actually as quick as a brushfire. What Graham had to do was to love Matthew right now, right this instant—heart, get busy—before Matthew grew up and turned into someone else.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Even more depressing than the idea of having Theo’s parents over for dinner was the knowledge that they would do so. Just as they would have the parents of the friend after Theo, and the friend after that, too. Then eventually, Matthew would have girlfriends and wives and in-laws and it would all involve a lot of spaghetti marinara, but Graham would do it. He would do it because that was what you did when you loved someone. You kept pushing until you broke on through to the other side, as Jim Morrison may have said. Only Morrison didn’t add that on the other side, you found another obstacle and had to keep pushing. Forever.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“It seemed to Graham that one of the benefits of getting older was that your friends stopped getting married and having expensive boring weddings that wrecked your budget and ruined your weekend. (There aren’t a lot of benefits of getting older, but that was one of them.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Life forced you to cope. Life wore down all your sharp corners with its tedious grinding on, the grinding that seemed to take forever but was actually as quick as a brushfire. What”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“When Matthew first started going to elementary school, I would make sure that the very last thing I said to him every morning was ‘I will always love you,’ so that if something happened to me, that would be the last thing he remembered me saying. But that sort of fell by the wayside and now when I drop him off, I say, ‘Don’t tell me you forgot your backpack again!’ or ‘Jump out quickly before someone honks!’ You know, in general, I feel my standards of mothering have declined over the years. Doesn’t it seem like I would have gotten better after so much practice? Like by this point, I should just be able to snap my fingers and—poof!—Matthew’s dressed and fed and loved and secure? But instead it’s more like Downton Abbey and I had a couple of very strong seasons there in the beginning and now I’m cutting corners like crazy.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Bad deeds—even anonymous bad deeds—came home to roost eventually in the form of a speeding ticket or a court summons, but anonymous good deeds generally went unacknowledged forever.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“But your old self knew nothing at all.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Hello, Pearl!” Audra said as they got out of the car, and Graham was grateful because he couldn’t have remembered Clayton’s wife’s name if he’d been left in a prison cell for five years with nothing else to do.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Did you have the sense she wanted to murder you?” She said this in a normal sort of voice; they might have been discussing whether they had any lemons.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Political activism while you stirred the spaghetti sauce? What could be better?”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Was it just Graham or was Beverly awfully judgmental, especially for a yoga teacher?”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Yes, but it’s not what you think,” Audra said. “Well, not as bad as you think, probably. It wasn’t because of you, Graham. It wasn’t because I’m unhappy with you. It was more that it was exciting. And I thought, well, I could have you and Matthew and I could have this other thing, too. And by the time I realized I couldn’t, we were too serious...”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“bread was everything you wanted love to be, but it so often isn’t: hot, sweet, comforting, full of promise, and so heartwarming it made you want to do nice things for other people.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“He and Audra must look like the newest of lovers, or the frailest of seniors, or the drunkest of partygoers—or anything, really, other than the survivors they were.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Derek Rottweiler can’t go to the Natural History Museum at all anymore,” Matthew said, “because he took a slingshot into the butterfly conservatory”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“And then Graham understood that it was almost too late. He had spent so much time wishing Matthew were different, wondering how to make Matthew different, when it was actually the process of living that did it. Life forced you to cope. Life wore down all your sharp corners with its tedious grinding on, the grinding that seemed to take forever but was actually as quick as a brushfire. What Graham had to do was to love Matthew right now, right this instant—heart, get busy—before Matthew grew up and turned into someone else. Chapter Eight It was a Friday night not so different from any other.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Audra tossed her nearly empty Cheetos bag on the coffee table. “Cheetos are just delicious while you’re eating them,” she said. “But then you feel yucky afterward. Sort of like porn.” She”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“We talked about how terrible it is that you spend so much of your life hoping you’re not pregnant”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Was there any sight more heartbreaking than a small boy with a big backpack?”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“I don’t do that,” he said. “And I especially didn’t do it today in my room between four-thirty and five.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“at this camp, Matthew would learn to love hiking and swimming and canoeing (which were all things he did not care for), and learn not to mind mosquitoes and wasps and mud between his toes and freezing cold water and being away from his family (which were all things he minded a lot). This”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“It was the very best and the very worst thing about her.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation

“Graham was waiting for a sign. If he told Audra he was going to be out late and she objected, that would be a sign that he shouldn’t go.”
― Katherine Heiny, Standard Deviation