By the Book Quotes

“When's the last time you took a risk? I'm talking IRL, not in your reading material.”
― Amanda Sellet, By the Book

“Your life," she corrected. "It's the nature of existence. To err is human. We screw up, and then screw up some more.”
― Amanda Sellet, By the Book

“You said she had a condition?” Terry looked questioningly at me.
“Ennui. It’s like boredom, except you think it makes you interesting.”
― Amanda Sellet, By the Book

“It was almost a direct reversal of the old rules of conduct, under which a woman had to remain virginal or risk being cast out of society. Nowadays young women were apparently supposed to count being a sexual dynamo among their accomplishments—a far riskier avocation than embroidery or playing the harp.

From damned if you do to damned if you don’t: the story of women’s lives”
― Amanda Sellet, By the Book

“The shivery, hopeful, heart-pounding certainty that something good was about to happen? It was like starting a new book, with countless pages left to turn.”
― Amanda Sellet, By the Book

“To my fellow readers: I hope you never run out of good books.”
― Amanda Sellet, By the Book

“There was something highly literary in the idea of succumbing to a fateful solitary misery, like working myself to death making hats.”
― Amanda Sellet, By the Book

“The thing you need to know about Arden is that she reads a lot of those 'hey loser, fix your life' books," Lydia informed me.
"How to revolutionize your existence in five minutes. Step one buy this book.”
― Amanda Sellet, By the Book

“In fact, I suspected it might never be finished. I'd keep writing forever, never quite getting it right, until I was a withered crone and he was a well-preserved movie star, with a house on the Riveria and dozens of linen shirts in varying shades of blue.”
― Amanda Sellet, By the Book

“I felt a shifting in my brain, pieces of the past rearranging. All this time I’d been thinking in absolutes, like it was an either/or proposition: friends versus not friends, and if it ended badly, the whole thing must have been a lie. But maybe it was more complicated. There could be different types of friendship, and different stages within each one. Deep bonds of loyalty and affection, or ties that have more to do with convenience. Relationships that hold you back, and ones that grow with you.”
― Amanda Sellet, By the Book