The Rumor Quotes
"Working from home is a constant battle between the work and the home."
"It's not quite finished had been Madeline's standard excuse."
"You shouldn’t have to give up a dream situation because of bills."
"A garden is not a matter of life or death. It is far more important than that."
"You have a way with language, Your pieces have a lot of surface energy."
"I’m not sure what’s going on. She’s been acting weird."
"She was a born liar, Hope thought. It was incredible. She should skip the modeling career and go straight to politics."
"It’s an Italian jacket, right? You’d think they would make them wine resistant."
"I’m the ploughman in the valley with a face full of mud."
"I don’t think she took a commission," Madeline said. "Oh, believe me, she took a commission," Eddie said.
"What a beautiful buzz, what a beautiful buzz."
"You’re clear on what’s happening here, right, Nadia? Nobody but us can know. Otherwise, it’ll be back to Russia for the five of you."
"Thank God you’re alive," Madeline said. "Eddie called me. He said you’d locked yourself in your study and spent the night there?"
"I guess so," Eddie said. "My parents did the best they could, then my old man died of emphysema when I was fourteen, then my mother three years later, of lung cancer. They both smoked like chimneys, and Barbie, too. I never touched cigarettes because I ran track."
"Running kept me out of trouble," Eddie said. "I still hold the Commonwealth record for the four hundred."
"Would you like to order a couple dozen littlenecks?" Eddie asked. "I know I’m not Greg MacAvoy, but I’m happy to help you eat them."
"Thank you," the Chief said. "You’re a good guy, Eddie. A really good guy."
"If you ever need a hand or want to grab a drink," the Chief said, "just call me."
"I love to fish," Eddie said, although this was a lie. He hated to fish. It was too much sit-around-and-wait for Eddie; he would rather be in the office making money.
"There is something in the writing that is so immediate, so electrifying, it nearly burned my fingers as I turned the page."
"Did I ever tell you about the guy who tiled my master bathroom? He was edible. I wanted to eat him."
"I want an ending where the woman is happy instead of good."
"This practice exercise is going right to the top of the New York Times bestseller list!"
"Two of the women at this table will betray the person on their left."
"She weathered the rumor about her screwing Brick by holding her head high and not saying one word on the topic."
"I don’t understand why you’re a gardener if you were a literature major," Hope said.
"I’ll treat them like gold," Jean said. "I swear, Grace, when you walked in, I thought you were one of your daughters. You are positively glowing. You’re not pregnant, are you?"
"Oh, any one of a dozen places," Trevor said. "You got your own apartment, and Eddie stopped by to see you on the first day, and someone saw him."
"There’s a rumor going around," the Chief said. "I’ve heard it three times now."
"Normally, I would say go right ahead, replace those details with equally vivid details—but in this case, Madeline, you really nailed it."
"I have never loved anyone the way that I love you."
"Allegra is a cheater, and you, Grace, are a cheater."
"I thought he would be cool about it. I thought he would just let us go."
"She didn’t want to face what Allegra was doing to Brick because it’s exactly the same thing you’re doing to Eddie?"
"And yet, the words good faith gnawed at him."
"Eddie heart went up in flames, a sudden bonfire."
"He said to Philip, 'I can have it to you first thing Tuesday morning. In cash.'"
"He tried to calculate a way to get Madeline and Trevor at least a portion of their investment back."
"Nadia had brought in the man she’d been sleeping with from Kasper Snacks, saying he was interested in buying a house."
"Eddie wished his life were like that. Instead, it felt as if he were standing nuts deep in icy water, panning for nuggets of gold."
"Money couldn’t buy happiness—except when it could."
"He needed something big. He needed something real."
"I should never have let that story see the light of day."