The Odyssey Quotes

“The responsibility of getting it right, day after day, minute after minute. How was anyone supposed to be alive? The answer presented itself to me, a red-and-white sign. They drink.”
― Lara Williams, The Odyssey

“At least when working in customer service there was the acknowledgment of artifice in your interactions. In an office you had to pretend even to your colleagues that that’s just how you were. Smiling and willing and more or less eager to please. It was exhausting.”
― Lara Williams, The Odyssey

“I thought back to my old apartment, my life with my husband, how consumed I was by need. How it was the only thing keeping me going. How the getting never really felt as good as the wanting, but the not-getting felt fucking catastrophic. I must be better, I thought. I must be good. I mentally repeated the refrain. I must be better. I must be good. Voices from my past life periodically interrupted but I drowned them out, thinking in a louder, more urgent voice. I must be my best self. Best self. Best self.”
― Lara Williams, The Odyssey

“She told me she was going to prick me to make sure the anesthetic had worked. I felt pressure but no pain. My life would have been a lot more straightforward, I thought, if I could feel only pressure but no pain.”
― Lara Williams, The Odyssey

“The only time I felt like a fraud was when a customer would ask me a question and I would look blankly at the girls until one of them intervened. But generally I understood why I was the manager and they were not. It was because I was a natural leader.”
― Lara Williams, The Odyssey

“I felt light of foot walking over, though when I saw the shop’s front door, I got the familiar but unnameable sensation of melancholy and regret. It took a few moments to get myself together before I remembered to smile and do my rounds, to transform anxiety into excitement.”
― Lara Williams, The Odyssey

“I once heard that a good way to cope with anxiety is to just pretend it is excitement. The body’s articulation is the same either way. You can trick your brain into practically anything.”
― Lara Williams, The Odyssey

“I guess it should have made me more protective of myself or something. More cautious with what I give away. But I actually do the opposite. Give people more than what they ask for. To get it over with.”
― Lara Williams, L'Odissea