That Old Cape Magic Quotes

“He'd discovered that his memories of that summer were like bad movie montages - young lovers tossing a Frisbee in the park, sharing a melting ice-cream cone, bicycling along the river, laughing, talking, kissing, a sappy score drowning out the dialogue because the screenwriter had no idea what these two people might say to each other.”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“Late middle age, he was coming to understand, was a time of life when everything was predictable and yet somehow you failed to see any of it coming.”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“Though here his voice faltered, because he knew as well as she did what came next, what words came next. If he could speak them, he might even convince her they were true, as his father had convinced his mother that Browning summer. It was the worst lie there was, imprisoning and ultimately embittering the hearer, playing upon her terrible need to believe. He could feel the I love you forming on his lips. Would he have said it if she hadn't interrupted?”
― richard russo, That Old Cape Magic

“Stories worked much the same way…A false note at the beginning was much more costly than one nearer the end because early errors were part of the foundation.”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“The attraction of cynicism was that it so often put you in the right, as if being right led directly to happiness.”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“The drive back to the Mid-fucking-west was always brutal, his parents barely speaking to each other, as if suddenly recalling last year's infidelities, or maybe contemplating whom they'd settle for this year. Sex, if you went by Griffin's parents, definitely took a backseat to real estate on the passion gauge.”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“Odd that the future should be so difficult to bring into focus when the past, uninvited, offered itself up so easily for inspection.”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“Griffin’s mother loathed grading papers, too, of course. Who didn’t? But she was meticulous about correcting errors, offering style and content suggestions in the margins, asking pointed, often insulting, questions (How long did you work on this?) and then answering them herself (Not long, one hopes, given the result).”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“Non basta una vita
"One life isn't enough”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“For people who dealt largely in dreams, his father was fond of observing, realtors were a surprisingly unromantic bunch, like card counters in a Vegas casino.”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“Maybe money did talk, as people claimed, but all it said to them was goodbye.”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“How, he couldn’t help wondering, did you get to be this woman’s age and still believe, as she apparently did, that everything meant something? She was obviously one of those people who just soldiered on, determined to believe whatever gave them comfort in the face of all contrary evidence. And maybe that wasn’t so dumb. The attraction of cynicism was that it so often put you in the right, as if being right led directly to happiness.”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“What did it mean that he had so little access to something as straightforward as what he really wanted?”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic

“Why does a rich country like ours blame people who have nothing for its problems?”
― Richard Russo, That Old Cape Magic