The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise Quotes

“Sometimes it just feels like we still spend so much time trying to teach the house not to catch on fire, instead of teaching the arsonist not to light it.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“Why is it called a grandfather clock and not a grandmother clock?” her eldest granddaughter, Poppy, asked once. “Because only a man would find the need to announce it every time he performed his job as required,” Louise replied.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“She didn’t think anyone in her family appreciated how utterly exhausting it was to be so angry all the time.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“She lay there in the dark and allowed the grief to flow through her veins, thick as mud. She’d learned long ago not to fight it, to make space for it, the way one might for a new tchotchke on the shelf, a souvenir from a trip you didn’t want to forget. That was all grief was, really, Louise had determined—remembering.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“Nothing in life goes according to plan. Nothing. And the sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“In life, there were two kinds of friends: friends who would wish you well on your journey to battle, and friends who would jump in the trenches with you.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“Angry women don’t bother me. It’s the ones who aren’t furious that I worry about.” “What?” Tanner asked, confused. “Why?” “Means they aren’t paying attention.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“She was so young. She had no idea how long life was. People always said life was short, but it wasn’t. Not really. You could cram so many different lives into one. Be so many different people.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“My mom always kept a leg of lamb in the freezer. She never used it”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“Oh, I know you think it’s only for lithe twenty-year-olds. I did, too, when I was your age. But if I recall, it wasn’t all that good. I do hope boys have gotten better at it.” Tanner thought about Grant. The sweating and grunting. How the anticipation was often so much better than the actual act. How she was left wanting every time he finished, tossed her his discarded T-shirt, and then kissed her on the nose and rolled over to start snoring. “They haven’t.” “Pity,” Mrs. Wilt said. “Good news is, they get much better with age. Some of them, anyway. Not the good-looking ones, of course. Steer clear of them.” “I know, I know. Because they’re jerks.” “No. Well, yes. Sometimes. But they’re also terrible lovers. They don’t have to work for it. Fair-to-average-looking men are perfect. They’re like goldendoodles.” “Goldendoodles?” “You know, eager to please. Grateful for the attention.” She grinned. “They slobber a bit.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“In life, there were two kinds of friends: friends who would wish you well on your journey to battle, and friends who would jump in the trenches with you. The latter were much more difficult to come by, but George belonged in that group.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“But Tanner, of course, like most daughters, would make many more choices throughout her life that Candace would likely not agree with, causing a fair amount of stress and anxiety, which her mother would then naturally reabsorb and view as her own shortcoming somehow.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“Well, at least we found something you’re good at.” “What, gun handling?” Tanner asked, still laughing. Mrs. Wilt cackled. “God, no. Salvatore’s lucky you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn,” she said, which made Tanner laugh even harder. When they caught their breath, Tanner crinkled her brow. “Then what am I good at?” Mrs. Wilt took a long pull from a plastic water bottle and re-capped it. Then she glanced at Tanner and said purposefully, “Being a friend.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“For what it’s worth,” Mrs. Wilt said, “I don’t think you’re broken.” Tanner felt her eyes sting once again, her nose tingle. “You don’t?” “No,” she said. “You’re just human like the rest of us.” Tanner let out a slow and quiet exhale as Mrs. Wilt said softly, mostly under her breath, “Aren’t we a pair?” It was a throwaway line, Tanner knew. Something people just said. But she clung on to the we like a drowning person to a life vest, taking solace in how it made her feel—like maybe she wasn’t so alone after all.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“She took a deep breath, and then said in an even smaller voice, “I think I’m broken. Like I don’t even know how to be a person anymore. How to be . . . anything.” Like water circling the drain, her words crept close to the truth, but she couldn’t bring herself to say her biggest fear aloud: that she had been so awful to everyone in her life—what she had done to Vee, how she had been treating her mom and the rest of her family—she thought maybe she was actually a bad person. Deep down where it mattered. And that she deserved to be lonely. To be alone.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“Louise pretended she didn’t hear his voice break on the word lovely. She knew he was thinking of his wife. She also knew it wouldn’t do to ask about her. Or try to comfort him with words. When it came to grief, words, she found, were always lacking.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“She closed her eyes, wishing her mom were there. Why was that? No matter how much she hated her at times, it was instinctual, this yearning for her mom’s care. The way she would put a cool cloth on her brow when she was sick. Bring her flat Sprite. Rub her back until she fell asleep.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“who won’t drink in company is either a thief or a spy.” Louise raised an eyebrow. It was something Tanner had dealt with often at Northwestern—not the question of whether she was a thief or a spy, but the need to explain herself to her peers who immediately judged her as a teetotaler, a prude.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“She’d learned long ago not to fight it, to make space for it, the way one might for a new tchotchke on the shelf, a souvenir from a trip you didn’t want to forget. That was all grief was, really, Louise had determined—remembering.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“OK, OK,” he said, and Jules pictured him holding his hands up as if to tell her to calm down in the same condescending manner her ex-husband used to. If there was anything worse in life than a man telling you to calm down when you were upset, she didn’t know what it was.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“Louise: I just haven’t seen you like this in a while. I’m used to seeing you more sedate. Thelma: Well, I’ve had it up to my ass with sedate. —Thelma & Louise”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“To them, she was a mother, and once a mother, you’re never quite a fully formed person in the eyes of your children.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“In life, there were two kinds of friends: friends who would wish you well on your journey to battle, and friends who would jump in the trenches with you. The latter were much more difficult to come by, but George belonged in that group. Which was how she had known, when she’d asked so many years ago, that George would rob the Copley Plaza with her. She”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“know,” Candace said, because she did. Marty and Tanner may have grown apart over the years, but the love of a sister was as constant as the sun. You might not feel its rays every day, but it was always there.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“Nothing in life goes according to plan. Nothing. And the sooner you accept that, the better off you’ll be.” Tanner grunted. “Are you always”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“She’d learned long ago not to fight it, to make space for it, the way one might for a new tchotchke on the shelf, a souvenir from a trip you didn’t want to forget. That was all grief was, really, Louise had determined—remembering. She”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“Sybil Ludington, the daughter of Colonel Henry Ludington, who got on her horse to warn colonial forces of British advancement—riding twice the distance of her male counterpart Paul Revere, and getting none of the renown.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“flagrante delicto”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“would make many more choices throughout her life that Candace would likely not agree with, causing a fair amount of stress and anxiety, which her mother would then naturally reabsorb and view as her own shortcoming somehow.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise

“Thanks to a book she had read not too long ago, fittingly titled Letters That Changed the World (also a gift, but from whom, she could not recall), Louise was familiar with the idea that one letter could indeed change everything. Abraham Lincoln grew his infamous beard based on the advice of an eleven-year-old letter writer, Grace Bedell, who stated directly and to Louise’s delight, “You would look a great deal better for your face is too thin.” Tennessee House of Representatives member Harry Thomas Burn cast the deciding vote for women’s suffrage thanks to a letter from his mother, Febb Ensminger Burn, admonishing him, “Don’t forget to be a good boy.” Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin after receiving a letter from her sister urging her to “write something to make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.”
― Colleen Oakley, The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise