Persons Unknown Quotes

“Colin can tolerate vast panoramas of tedious detail, where others glaze over and lose not merely their thread but the will to live.”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“After a time it dawned on her that the world was full of catastrophically exhausted people on the borders of normal function—offices laden with zombie-parents who hadn’t slept in years, never mind weeks; cars being driven by ravaged adults with barely enough energy to find their shoes.”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“What I mean is, it’s what mammals do: they turn around on the spot and burrow into straw. The human equivalent is folding small vests and becoming laundry obsessed.”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“No one has told her that becoming someone’s mother would lead her to imagine the catastrophic end to her motherhood.”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“And when I feel happy, as soon as I notice it, then I’m not happy anymore. It’s like a fleeting ghost that disappears if you catch sight of it. One must notice happiness only by stealth, whistling, as if it doesn’t matter at all, which it doesn’t I suppose.”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“have no inner spring. I am in constant preparation for sitting down.”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“Angel and I were watching all this, the smears of ketchup hardening on our discarded plates, our feet up as if our legs were paralyzed, which they were I suppose. There is little in modern life more paralyzing than the recliner chair.”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“Loneliness is as big a health hazard as smoking fifteen fags a day, and not nearly as enjoyable.”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“Plant prickly bushes under windows. Halt! This is a shrubbery!”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“The baby’s tiny fat hand lies on Manon’s other breast, possessively. Recently, he’s begun pulling off—rather painfully taking the nipple with him in his powerful suction-gums—in order to look up at her and smile. Huge gummy mouth, froglike, eyes filled with delight. It’s as if he is saying thank you for the milk, or something along the lines of “Isn’t this nice, we two?”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“Each member of the family in their personal cube of unhappiness.”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“She remembers those moments of coming up against death and having to shock yourself with the permanence of it. The hollow sensation of actively loving a person who cannot love you back because they are dead. And wondering who you are, if the you who was loved by them isn’t being loved by them anymore.”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown

“Mourning someone is hard work. It’s so hard it brings with it a tiredness you can’t even believe. You keep thinking you can sleep it off but you just get more tired as it goes on.”
― Susie Steiner, Persons Unknown