Nantucket Nights Quotes
"It’s a full moon tonight. Can you even believe the romance in that?"
"I envy anyone over forty in the single digits."
"For just a minute she felt lonely, like the last housewife left in America."
"Summer was a slice of heaven, but the same was true for the rest of the year on the island."
"I have better things to do with my time than speculate about Valerie’s illicit sex life."
"We can’t replace them, but we can be the Night Swimmers."
"There are far worse things than being lonely. Like being betrayed."
"Lovely seems better suited to describing a summer day, or a bride."
"Tonight will be a night we’ll remember for the rest of our lives."
"To the night, to the water that surrounds us, to the island of Nantucket, and to our friendship. These things are eternal."
"A daughter she’d given away. What if the daughter looked just like the husband? It was too bittersweet, too powerful."
"The perfect mother of four perfect children."
"It’s not you, Kayla said, reaching for another hunk of baguette. She was feeling light-headed and drunk. I guess it’s time for me to tell my secret."
"She poured herself another glass of champagne, then one for Val and Antoinette."
"Her heart was beating wildly. Why was she so angry?"
"The water was the perfect foil for Val’s news. Soft waves rolled over Kayla’s shoulders."
"No one seemed surprised by this. His mother smiled at him. 'So do you, sweetheart,' she said. 'So do you.'"
"I can’t go anywhere after practice," Theo said. "I have to take my sister Cassidy to the library."
"Did she chop her own wood? The lawn around the house was greener than it should have been in April, and freshly edged around clumps of daffodils. Did she mow her own lawn?"
"The half-moon window threw a shape of fading light onto the wood floor."
"Theo wasn’t sure what to do; he didn’t know if she’d seen him or not."
""I liked your dance." "Did you?" she said, in a way that made it sound like she couldn’t have cared less."
""I hadn’t gotten a gift like that in a long time. Nor have I gotten one since.""
"At first, it was just sex. Seeing her, Theo would get a stubborn erection and Antoinette would make love to him until he cried out, or just plain cried, so grateful was he for the incredible pleasure, a pleasure bordering on pain."
""I do what everybody else in this world does, Theo. I try to survive.""
""What’s going on?" Theo spewed forth the story, an edited version, from the baseball game forward, up to the part where Theo now knew himself to be in love—only instead of the kind of love that made things bright and clear, this kind of love obscured things, confused them."
""A million years ago. I took you and your mother to Tuckernuck Island, and you found that shell on the beach. Your mother asked you what you wanted to do with it, and without hesitating you marched through the sand and gave it to me. You were only three years old.""
""I love you, Antoinette," he said to the closed door. "Are you listening?""
""Fuck you," he said. He breezed past her and went up to his room."
""You must be exhausted," she said. "Try and sleep, Theo.""
""It’s anything but okay," Antoinette said. "God is punishing me.""
"You need to do a better job picking your friends."
"And finally, make sure the details are done correctly."
"That’s why Night Swimmers is only one day of the year."
"Because that’s all we can handle. If we shared and gave and loved that much every day, we’d be exhausted, drained, and sick of each other."
"That’s real life. This, Kayla, this is real life."
"Regret was too mild a word for what Raoul felt now."
"It's only a house. One hell of a house, but still only a house."
"Change can be excruciating. And junior high in particular can be excruciating."
"What could we possibly say that would explain what has happened this weekend?"
"They think the worst because they want to think the worst."
"Everyone knows. They know what they read, but no one knows what actually happened."
"This isn’t something you can apologize for. You let Jacob fuck you."
"We’re good people. That’s why they hate us. Because we’re good. Because we’re lucky."
"Everyone’s talking about it, Raoul. You know how when something bad happens to someone and everyone you meet whispers to you about it? And you end up knowing the gory details of someone else’s private life, someone you barely even know? That someone is me."
"I’m breaking the contract. I’ll pay what I owe you for the work you’ve done so far, but no more. I’m hiring someone else."
"You won’t be able to find anyone else," Raoul said, hoping this was true.
"He didn’t manage to make it back to school until Friday, and by then it was too late."
"Grief flooded Theo as he sat in the lunchroom, alone."
"She wanted to have an abortion, and I was trying to stop her. I didn’t want her to kill our baby."
"I arrived safely," Kayla said. "I love you all."
"Do you need help with your bags?" he asked, coming to her rescue.
"The relationship would have to be restored one brick at a time. There was no quick fix, and there were no easy answers."
"She reminded herself that what was more terrifying was the thought that Antoinette might be alive."
"On the outside, everything appeared to be back to normal."
"Kayla listened to the piped-in Christmas music, Karen Carpenter singing, 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.' She wanted to disappear into the glitter and tinsel and spun sugar of Christmas."
"Kayla walked all the way back to Vineyard Haven; several cars stopped to offer her a ride, but she declined. She was in a trance of sorts."
"To be friends with another woman was difficult, Kayla thought, and painful and complicated. But when a friendship between women was good, it had a sacred, shining power."
"This little girl changed things, transformed them."
"It’s about us losing our father. That’s what this summer is about. That’s what every day has been about since his plane crashed."