Commonwealth Quotes

“Did you ever want to be a writer?” “No,” she said, and she would have told him. “I only wanted to be a reader.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Life, Teresa knew by now, was a series of losses. It was other things too, better things, but the losses were as solid and dependable as the earth itself.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Half the things in this life I wish I could remember and the other half I wish I could forget.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Isn't that what everyone wants, just for a moment to be unencumbered?”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“He is fifteen and ten and five. He is an instant. He is flying back to her. He is hers again. She feels the weight of him in her chest as he comes into her arms. He is her son, her beloved child, and she takes him back.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“All the stories go with you, Franny thought, closing her eyes. All the things I didn’t listen to, won’t remember, never got right, wasn’t around for. All”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“There’s no protecting anyone,” Fix said, and reached over from his wheelchair to put his hand on hers. “Keeping people safe is a story we tell ourselves.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“The three stages of life: youth, middle age, and ‘You’re looking good, Mr. Keating.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“This was the pleasure of a long life: the way some things worked themselves out.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Franny gave her sister a tired smile. "Oh, my love," she said. "What do the only children do?"

"We'll never have to know," Caroline said.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Bad habits were all a matter of perspective, and as long as the present was viewed through the lens of the past, anyone would say he was doing a spectacular job.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“All the stories go with you, Franny thought, closing her eyes. All the things I didn't listen to, won't remember, never got right, wasn't around for. All the ways to get to Torrance.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Her mother was lost in a sea of irregular verbs.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Those were lean years for emotional charity...”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Your guilt’s got nothing on my guilt,” Franny said. “Your guilt isn’t even in the ballpark.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“It was about the inestimable burden of their lives: the work, the houses, the friendships, the marriages, the children, as if all the things they’d wanted and worked for had cemented the impossibility of any sort of happiness. The”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Your mom doesn't know about the movie, does she?"
"My mom doesn't know about the book," he said, "It turns out a novel isn't the worst place to hide things.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“She was shocked by how bad he looked. Cancer really was the devil’s handshake.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“She had made a terrible error in judgement and he had turned it into something permanent and beautiful. That was the nail in the tire. Or not even that. Not her reading it, not his writing it, but”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“It's like this enormous tree had just crashed through the house and I was picking up the leaves so no one would notice what had happened.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“They were her kidnappers, sailing her across the lawn and into the backseat of the car, lifting up her feet while pivoting her around in a way that was disturbingly professional, as if stealing old people was what they did.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“the story of his day. “Americans love the idea of vaccinating Africans. What could be nicer than a photograph of dusty little Nigerian children lined up for inoculation on the front page of the New York Times? But for their own children the mothers of New York City find vaccinations passé. They say the vaccination is not sufficiently natural, that it could possibly cause something worse than it could prevent. I have spent the day trying to convince women with college educations to vaccinate their children and they argued with me.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“But sooner or later you have to do something. If you think you're going to find one thing that will be perfect for you, you're going to spend your eightieth birthday reading the want ads.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Oh, my love,' she said. 'What do the only children do?'

'We'll never have to know.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“When Teresa was told that she had lost summers, she made a point to curse and weep, but she wondered silently if she hadn't just been handed the divorce equivalent of a Caribbean vacation.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“What do the only children do?”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Franny looked at them up on the porch, everyone softened by the veil of the screen, by the light that was slanting in behind them, by the bank of yellow lilies that separated them from her. It was not unlike seeing tigers at the zoo.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“There was no explanation for how the school, which was the major source of misery in their lives, could have been transformed into the most compelling place on earth simply by virtue of its being Saturday. What a difference a day makes, Albie’s”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“They had wanted to go to the barn and brush the horses. If they brushed the horses and mucked out a few of the stalls then usually Ned would let them take turns riding the mare for the afternoon. But Albie was driving them crazy. What was he doing that was so intolerable? Standing here in front of him now, Franny couldn't remember. Or maybe he wasn't doing anything wrong. Maybe it was just that someone had to watch him around the horses and none of them wanted to do it. He wasn't the monster they told him he was, in fact there wasn't anything so awful about him. It was only that he was a little kid.”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth

“Life, Teresa knew by now, was a series of losses. It was other things too, better things, but the losses were as solid and dependable as the earth itself. Now”
― Ann Patchett, Commonwealth