A Week At The Shore Quotes
"Every memory is real, but not all are based on fact. Time, forgetfulness, emotional need—any of these things can chip away at memory."
"Photography has taught me how to wait. It has also taught me how to focus on that single subject and ignore everything else."
"As the middle of three children, I was born with peripheral vision—as in, an acute awareness of my sisters above and below, my parents, our home and friends, and my precarious place in it all."
"Limiting myself to one scene at a time, as my camera does, has been huge."
"I rub her shoulder with my cheek. Her fresh-from-the-shower curls, still damp and docile, smell of organic mint shampoo."
"Life isn’t about what we deserve, it’s about what survival demands."
"The last thing I want is for him to pick up the phone and call her before we get to the house ourselves."
"Dogs are safer than seeing people I recognize."
"Going home will not be a vacation, Joy. Trust me on that."
"If you’re the middle child, why aren’t you in the middle?"
"We were placed at first, then it became habit."
"I mean, seriously, what husband would keep a lover living right next door?"
"There were no pictures to take. The family scattered."
"She built a career when she was in her forties and competing against men in their twenties. We should all be so strong."
"But Joy’s eye is fresh. Definitely, a gallery."
"Papa loves music. Will you go down and play the piano for him?"
"The way he just picked up and left, that was weird."
"You don’t see him every day, like haven’t spent any significant time with him in twenty years, but suddenly you’re an expert?"
"It’s impossible to diagnose Alzheimer’s for sure until a person is dead, and—here’s a flash—Dad isn’t dead."
"I’ve been away for a long time, been a different person for that long time."
"I don’t want him to have Alzheimer’s disease. I don’t want him to have dementia, period."
"I’m worried that he’s doing things behind your back."
"It’s about trust. He’s learning, but he has setbacks."
"You mean, being on the outside rather than the inside? It’s true."
"It comes and goes. Sometimes I’m good, other times I put a shoe on the wrong, uh, uh, side."
"You think she’s definitely dead," he whispers, eyes haunted.
"It’s called bluff retreat. The waves come in higher each storm."
"It’s about compartmentalizing. I’m good at that in the city, where anonymity makes for easy diversion."
"Time has taught me that the best antidote to hollowness is activity."
"The spoken word is like bleach. Use it with purple socks, and though the socks may be wearable, they are never the same."
"Times have changed, but not that much. Get a tattoo before you know what you want to do with your life, and it can hurt your chances."
"They didn’t pay Peter in order to pay Paul. Robbed Peter to pay Paul. Took from Peter to pay Paul."
"You’re right. Likely before they were married. Not after."
"He said I was dumping it all on your shoulders, and he was right."
"It’s about the bottom line. I work with high-end realtors who have high-end clients. They want results and they want them now."
"It’s about covering all the bases. It’s about us being in control."
"He said he’s being watched by our men in blue."
"Memories shape us as surely—and invisibly—as DNA."
"Family can be a challenge, but the alternative is worse."
"We can look the other way when a memory intrudes, or deny that it ever existed, but it doesn’t go away."
"Memory is life experience. When we deny it, there’s a hole where it should be."
"We’re respectful in a hands-off kind of way. We give each other space."
"You have lots of good times. Can’t you still enjoy them?"
"Love, loyalty, fondness. Hate, distrust, obligation. Definitely complicated."
"He didn’t plan it, Mallory. It just happened. Things like that do."
"I had loved your mother for a very long time."
"I knew this whole business was going to be difficult for you."
"You have no idea how hard it was to keep silent."
"It makes sense, us looking alike and thinking alike."
"I don’t want to lose you, Mallory. I’ve waited a long time to tell you all this."
"I’m not sure whether she feels he’ll be a buffer between us, whether she concedes for the sake of Bill, who does like him, or whether she’s just too tired to fight."
"It’s haunted him these last twenty years. He blamed himself for taking her out on the boat that night."
"Sometimes, like with Jack’s mother, there just aren’t answers."
"Because life isn’t static. It keeps changing."
"You and I are both alive and well. It’s an opportunity."
"This is sudden. My timing stinks. I’m sorry."
"I never lied. But I did tell only half-truths. Like so many of us."
"If anything happens to me, she will be a wonderful mother to Joy, and that is the sum total of my last will and testament."
"I’m too young, too healthy, too optimistic. Call me in denial, but no one my age plans to die."
"I turned seventy last summer. Now a good friend has died, and I think of my own mortality."
"He never dreamed it would be me, for which I feel all the more guilty."