All-Night Pharmacy Quotes

“Being a person didn't come naturally to me the way it seemed to for others. People who were sure of themselves awed me. I studied them and tried to mimic their ease.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“No one had warned me how terrifying it was to get what you want.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“Criticism is still a cousin of attention.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“But you don't have to settle for being a person that things happen to. You have desires. Act on them.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“Then the pills kicked in, softening the edges of everything like an oil painting, and I found I didn't care.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“If I was what he loved, then there was something broken in him too.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“I see a bright future for you,” she said, closing her eyes. “Lots of sex, a sick apartment, pets that are super into you. Sobriety. Books. Self-actualization.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“Since childhood, I’d wished for the reprieve of blunted senses, for the ability to think and feel less. I was too sensitive to the energy of a situation, and I let that energy stand in for knowledge.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“Her protection cast an aura that reminded me of waves lapping a pebbled shore.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“Our most beloved delusion: that lying to each other was a kind of love.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“The only thing worse than concealing how adrift I was: when people I loved believed the lie.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“I knew these weren’t the decisions of a well-adjusted person, but I was afraid that examining them further would collapse the popsicle-stick scaffolding holding up my entire life.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“I needed to sit vigil over her until the storm quelled. If I closed my eyes, the universe might take her back.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“They think if we do all this American dream crap like get married and buy a condo in Encino, we can sleep without Ambien and fuck without wine.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“I liked imagining her as an independent contractor for the universe, filing a 1099 form addressed to the wind.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“That was the tragedy of our sisterhood. As soon as we came close to a mutual understanding, one of us changed, or both.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“You could fall asleep spooning her and wake up with a screwdriver pressed to your throat.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“They enter my day so dramatically, and then they’re gone. I spend hours consumed by the lives of complete strangers, and sometimes I take the bus home wondering if they existed at all.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“What was it that Emily Dickinson said? “Hope is the thing with feathers.” At a reading Sasha took me to, one of the poets said, “Hope is the thing with teeth.” That feels more honest to me.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“It’s a beautiful thing,” Sasha told me early on. “Most people only possess a third of the empathy they think they have. Not you. You’re very aware of who claims space in your heart.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“Seven months in, I couldn’t believe Sasha was mine. No one had warned me how terrifying it was to get what you want.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“She wasn’t overtly homophobic, but I didn’t want to test the limits of her tolerance by telling her about Sasha, the strip club dressing room, the time I nearly obliterated the family computer with lesbian porn.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“I was a little jealous. I wanted parents who took offense at my life choices. Criticism is still a cousin of attention.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“I didn’t know how to explain it. It—the feeling—was like eating chicken and realizing halfway through it was raw. I felt that way all the time.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing me better than I knew myself. But, also, I did want him to know me better than I knew myself, so that he could explain me back to me.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“One of his core beliefs was that a person couldn’t be held responsible for what they don’t know. So he chose not to know us.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“The takeaway of these stories seemed to be that our legacy was one of humiliation and suffering. Life treated those who came before me with relentless indignity, and I had a moral obligation to live better than them. Living better than them did not mean making my own choices. It meant honoring the choices my ancestors would have wanted for me.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy: A Novel

“She looked adorably disoriented, and I was so overcome with longing I felt my cells begin to smoke.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“....how they relapsed once they realized that, if the endless vomiting and diarrhea didn't kill them, the suicidal thoughts would.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy

“I wanted parents who took offense at my life choices. Criticism is still a cousin of attention.”
― Ruth Madievsky, All-Night Pharmacy