Vinegar Girl Quotes

“(The unsatisfying thing about practicing restraint was that nobody knew you were practicing it.)”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“Beware against the sweet person, for sugar has no nutrition.’ ”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“Well, in my country they say that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

“Yes, they would,” Pyotr said mysteriously. He had been walking a couple of steps ahead of Kate, but now he dropped back and, without any warning, slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his side. “But why you would want to catch flies, hah? Answer me that, vinegar girl.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“You could really feel physically wounded if someone hurt your feelings badly enough.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“It’s hard being a man. Have you ever thought about that? Anything that’s bothering them, men think they have to hide it. They think they should seem in charge, in control; they don’t dare show their true feelings. No matter if they’re hurting or desperate or stricken with grief, if they’re heartsick or they’re homesick or some huge dark guilt is hanging over them or they’re about to fail big-time at something—‘Oh, I’m okay,’ they say. ‘Everything’s just fine.’ They’re a whole lot less free than women are, when you think about it.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“She walked to work every day feeling starkly, conspicuously alone. It seemed that everyone else on the street had someone to keep them company, someone to laugh with and confide in and nudge in the ribs. All those packs of young girls who’d already figured everything out.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“Funny how you have to picture losing a thing before you think you might value it after all.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“In my country they have proverb: ‘Beware against the sweet person, for sugar has no nutrition.’ ” This was intriguing. Kate said, “Well, in my country they say that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“Sometimes, Kate was downright astonished by how much the women in the faculty lounge sounded like the little girls nattering away in Room 4. It”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“She wished she had had a mother. Well, she had had a mother, but she wished she’d had one who had taught her how to get along in the world better.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“Is still ridiculous,” Pyotr said. “Is so American, subtracting foods! Other countries, when they want healthiness they add foods in. Americans subtract them.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“I too am relieved. I did not know if Kate would like me.”
“Well, sure she would! You’re her own kind, right?”
“I am her kind?”
Richard suddenly looked less sure of himself, but he said, “I mean you’re in that same milieu or whatever. That science milieu she was raised in. Right, Uncle Louis?” he asked. “No normal person could understand you people.”
“What exactly do you find difficult to understand?” Dr. Battista asked him.
“Oh, you know, all that science jargon; I can’t offhand—”
“I am researching autoimmune disorders,” Dr. Battista said. “It’s true that ‘autoimmune’ has four syllables, but perhaps if I broke the word down for you…”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“There was a certain liberation in talking to a man who didn’t have a full grasp of English. She could tell him anything and half of it would fly right past him, especially if the words came tumbling out fast enough”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“The little girls in Room 4 were playing breakup. The ballerina doll was breaking up with the sailor doll. “I’m sorry, John,” she said in a brisk, businesslike voice—Jilly’s voice, actually—“but I’m in love with somebody else.”
“Who?” the sailor doll asked. It was Emma G. who was speaking for him, holding him up by the waist of his little blue middy blouse.
“I can’t tell you who, on account of he’s your best friend and so it would hurt your feelings.”
“Well, that’s just stupid,” Emma B. pointed out from the sidelines. “Now he knows anyhow, since you said it was his best friend.”
“He could have a whole bunch of best friends, though.”
“No, he couldn’t. Not if they were ‘best.’ ”
“Yes, he could. Me, I have four best friends.”
“You’re a weirdo, then.”
“Kate! Did you hear what she called me?”
“What do you care?” Kate asked. She was helping Jameesha take her painting smock off. “Tell her she’s weird herself.”
“You’re weird yourself,” Jilly told Emma B.
“Am not.”
“Are so.”
“Am not.”
“Kate said you were, so there!”
“I didn’t say that,” Kate said.
“Did so.”
Kate was about to say, “Did not,” but she changed it to, “Well, anyhow, I wasn’t the one who started it.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“But why you would want to catch flies, hah? Answer me that, vinegar girl.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“Hi Kate! We went to get marriage license! Who’s we? Your Father and I. Well I hope you’ll be very happy together.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“It seemed they viewed her differently now. She had status. She mattered. All at once they were interested in what she had to say.
She hadn't fully understood that before this, she hadn't mattered, and she felt indignant but also, against all logic, gratified. And also fraudulent. It was confusing.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“He could surprise her sometimes, she had found. It had emerged that it was dangerous to assume that he wouldn’t catch her nuances; he caught a lot more than he let on. Also, his accent was improving. Or was it just that she had stopped hearing it? And he had started beginning his sentences with a “well” or an “oh,” on occasion. He seemed to take great delight in discovering new idioms—“jumped the gun,” for instance, which had sprinkled his conversations for the past several days. (“I was thinking the evening news would be on, but I see that I…” and then a weighty pause before “jumped the gun!” he finished up triumphantly.) Now and then, an expression he used would strike her as eerily familiar. “Good grief,” he said, and “Geez,” and once or twice, “It was semi-okay.” At such moments, she felt like someone who had accidentally glimpsed her own reflection in a mirror.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“flibbertigibbet.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“Why Americans always begin inch by inch with what they say?”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“She has. No. Plan.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“she had warned Kate not ever to let a man meddle with the housework. “He’ll get all carried away with it,” she’d said, “and your life won’t never be your own after that.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“If her time had been her own, she would have worked in the garden. That always soothed her spirits.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“It is the language, maybe?” he asked. “I know the vocabulary, but still I am not capable to work the language the way I want to. There is no special word for ‘you’ when it is you that I am speaking to. In English there is only one ‘you,’ and I have to say the same ‘you’ to you that I would say to a stranger; I cannot express my closeness.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“Never, ever, under any circumstances apply lipstick while at the table.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“Do not worry […] Is not important. Is only a brand of canned peaches.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“I want to know all of your family—your aunt and her husband and her son and also your uncle the pastor. I anticipate your uncle the pastor! He will try to convert me, maybe?”
“Are you kidding? Uncle Theron couldn’t convert a kitten.”
“Theron,” Pyotr repeated. He made it sound like “Seron.” “You are doing this to torture me?”
“Doing what?”
“So many th names!”
“Oh,” Kate said. “Yes, and my mother’s name was Thea.”
He groaned. “What is the surname of these people?” he asked.
After the briefest pause, she said, “Thwaite.”
“My God!” He clapped a hand to his forehead.
She laughed. “I’m pulling your leg,” she told him. He lowered his hand and looked at her. “I was just kidding,” she clarified. “Really their surname is Dell.”
“Ah,” he said. “You were joking. You made a joke. You were teasing me!” And he started capering around the cart. “Oh, Kate; oh, my comical Kate; oh, Katya mine…”
“Stop it!” she said. People were staring at them. “Quit that and tell me which syrup you want.”
He stopped capering and selected a bottle, seemingly at random, and dropped it into the cart.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“People tended to be very spendthrift with their language, Kate had noticed. They used a lot more words than they needed to. She”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“In the living room, sectional couches lumbered through the vast space like a herd of rhinos, and both coffee tables were the size of double beds.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl

“I’ll lose all my funding and I’ll have to close the lab and drive a taxi for a living.” “Heaven forbid!” Uncle Theron said in real horror, and Bunny said, “You’re going to make me drop out of school and get a job, aren’t you. You’re going to make me go to work serving raw bloody sirloins in some steakhouse.” Kate wondered why they were both contemplating careers they were so unsuited for.”
― Anne Tyler, Vinegar Girl