Send For Me Quotes
"Klara can never let on, can never show this weakness."
"The precision of the bakery does, in a way, appeal to her nature."
"She’s become someone who is entirely focused on the work she must do."
"Her life unfurls before her, apron after apron."
"He’s been sneaking around like teenagers, which they are."
"A mother teaches her daughter to perpetuate the tedious rituals of her own imperfect life."
"He envied their passion, sometimes. It was dark, crimson."
"It was his vocation to perceive and remember, and he did; he remembered everything."
"What would it feel like to wake up well rested, in a room bright with sunshine?"
"Pulsing with the exquisite pain of being ripe and unpicked."
"Walter straightens his back and moves past the lamppost, tucking the two bouquets of flowers he’s carrying closer to his chest."
"It’s almost comical, the way they’re releasing her to him."
"Nothing is inevitable, not one single thing."
"She will fall into this great chasm gently, and be received."
"Their connection is a deep and wordless blend of boiled potatoes and unsolicited advice, a lullaby about a dog, a sick stomach gently rubbed in the middle of the night, an argument about a hat: vexation and resentment and warmth and need, a viscous flow of liquid, imperfect love."
"Hello, she thinks. It’s thrilling and almost preposterous."
"She exists—they all do—in this liminal state of bitter confusion, in the warped moment of watching a water glass slip out of a hand, staring at the winking shards that had been, seconds ago, solid, the memory of the drinking glass more real, more true, than its fragments."
"The air in the room feels strange and still, as if lightning has just struck."
"Life is lived in pairs, eyes straight ahead and carefully choreographed movements, but all you have to do is turn your head slightly, and you can see it all."
"A moment of connection was compensation for the repetitive job of being alive."
"The magic trick of love is focus, the 20/20 vision of it."
"The line between nothing and something was thread-thin."
"She was an astronaut, a cave dweller. Loneliness accrued around her, in the spaces between the coffee mugs in her cupboard, in the millimeters between the spines of her books, on her windowsills and under her bed."
"They clung to each other, refugees from an ancient sorrow. Right here in the suburbs, under a cloudless October sky!"
"All she wanted in that chaos was ten minutes to herself. And now that the children have left, and the bakery no longer belongs to them, she has so much time. She is marooned on an island of time."
"Even now, a day away from the wrenching good-byes, Annelise’s mind gropes toward the future. She can’t help herself. She feels the first inkling of what it might be like to live calmly."
"She gave the letters to her mother and then, for two weeks, Ruth didn’t mention them, not once."
"Ruthie’s wails are like automobile horns blaring directly into Annelise’s ears."
"She was porous. Her skin was the thinnest scrim between her delicate, pulpy self and the world with its sharp teeth."
"She imagines herself emerging from this cloying, fussy guest room in a week, filthy and staggering. "Where is dinner? You said you’d wait dinner!""
"He can’t stop looking at Annelise, the waves surrounding them, this woman, his friend’s wife, rooted in this skimming moment."
"Their compartment is airless, still. She has the feeling, removed from herself, in this enclosed space, listening to the repetitive clacking of the wheels against the tracks and gazing at the panorama of endless, greening prairie, that she might be able to stop time."
"The children you saw every day, your neighbors, your customers. Shopkeepers. Police officers. People stopped coming into the store, and then they stopped looking you in the eye, and then they began to hate you. People you trusted. Their affection turned sour"—he snaps his fingers—"like that. How do you make sense of it? I can’t."
"You had to make your portions last because you didn’t get a second helping."
"We’re so grateful to you. We’ll never be able to repay you."
"Desire is the stupid cousin of hope: blunt biology, ceaseless propagation. A flicker of light in the fathomless dark."
"Fear comes for her, clutching at her chest, clawing at her thighs."
"Back home, she was known for her terrible sense of direction... But she was so distractible, more attentive to random details than to the precision of the outcome."
"In a kitchen that will never quite cooperate with her instincts, she rubs a raw chicken gently with salt and pepper."
"Has she been imagining Oskar’s attentions? The lingering glances, the way he touches her arm when he’s making a point."
"The few holidays Walter and Annelise enjoyed in Germany as a married couple were delightful excursions."
"In the kitchen, she rests her elbows on the countertop, just for a moment, cups her face in her hands and closes her eyes."
"I hope you can try something from your side so that I can get to you as quickly as possible."
"Her heart wants to see pleasure, but her eyes see grime."
"She was coiled in those words, trapped in their urgent, whispered pleas. They were like filaments wrapped around her chest, so beautiful she could hardly breathe."