All's Well Quotes
"Just because my pain is invisible, doesn’t mean it isn’t real."
"I think of Mark. Mark of the dry needles, Mark of the scraping silver tools, his handsome bro face a wall of certainty framed by a crew cut."
"I picture them, my students, sitting on the stage. Swinging long, pliant legs over the edge. Young faces glowing with health as though they were spawned by the sun itself."
"For a long time, I had no hope," the woman in the drug commercial says now. "But then my doctor prescribed me Eradica."
"I shake my head in protest. No, I whisper to the fat man, to the back of my eyelids. I want my life back."
"I think Helen’s love is beautiful," I say to the table.
"I’m going to take ownership of your pain, Miranda," Mark said.
"Pain is not just a guide, not just simply information, not just a friendly teacher of lessons I need to learn."
"Women of the invisible pain. Women alight with blinking red webs. No spider in sight. But the web is there."
"I’m scared. Panicked. Broken. Sad. Terribly alone."
"My leg and spine are still screaming from whatever Mark did yesterday."
"I’m broken, Goldfish, I whisper-blubbered to Paul over the phone."
"Trouble in the theater. Trouble with your back."
"You know what I’d love? I’d love to show you a trick. Do you like tricks, Ms. Fitch?"
"But pain can move, Ms. Fitch. It can switch. Easy. Easily. From house to house, from body to body."
"Yes, unbelievable," I whisper. I see suits the color of night. Black leather feet tapping. A mic wrapped in roses and fairy lights.
"They preferred to remain under the radar. You know how it is, am I right?"
"I’m not, really. I mean I’m still in a lot pain," I try to say it softly, to reflect the pain that I’m in.
You’re taking a risk," Hugo says now. "I admire that.
"She changes him though. In the end," I say.
"Something’s different about you, Miranda."
"I think so," I whisper. "I think it is better."
"Of course," Miranda. They nod. "You told us. Just like spring."
"You were great in rehearsal today," I tell her.
"You want to deprive her and the audience"—I wave my hand again at the empty theater—"of resolution, of a happy ending—is that what you’re saying, Grace?"
"She’s not missing. Don’t make it sound so unnecessarily sinister."
"Everything is so damp and fragrant and fuckable."
"I’ve had to make some difficult decisions."
"I think sitting in the audience would be far more comfortable for you."
"We’re always happy to have you here, of course."
"We are all in mourning. But we must soldier on."
"Everything transforming, coming into itself."
"Grace looks at me. Why not? Am I insane?"
"And then it’s the Mirandas I see again. All seeming to glow from within."
"I feel a smile creep across my face as I say this."
"We just want to see a good show, Ms. Fitch."
"My heart drumming steadily behind my ribs."
"My lips smile so wide they stretch my face."
"Sometimes we wish for terrible things, things we deserve. How could we not wish for them when we deserve them? And sometimes the heavens hear us. Something hears us. And our wishes come true. Should we feel guilty? Of course we shouldn’t feel guilty, why guilty?"
"People get sick and people get better and it’s nothing to do with us. The wheel of fortune, Ellie. The wheel, the wheel, always turning."
"I can’t wait to see her face, I’ll admit it. Her hard, possibly confused expression—What is all this?—puddling into delight, understanding, at the sight of all those bright spring flowers, all those grinning yellow balloons beaming at her."
"You are Helen. You will play Helen. It’s what you wanted, and, miracle of miracles, you got it."
"The audience will only know how deeply you have been in pain when they see how hard you dance afterward."
"I’m still smiling through all of this. So selfless."
"It’s all relative." I smile to show him how it’s relative."
"And then she leaves it all there on her front steps."
I’m hearing it now. Just under this song like a bass, but it’s not a bass sound. More like the music has a lower floor, a basement that Judy’s "Zing!" doesn’t know about.
"The crashing ocean looks to me like a field of flowers. A scent rises up."
"Sleep hasn't come easily these days. What comes is the night, then the day, then the night again. And my eyes always wide open."
"But here, now, with my hands in the cold, rocking sea, these flowers blooming all around me, my eyes close at last."
"Black sky. Bright stars… And then blue. Blue so bright it hurts my eyes."
"I’m lying on the rocks in a heap like I fell from the sky."
"The caw of crows and the caw of gulls circling above me in the blue, blue sky."
"OPENING NIGHT. USUALLY it’s a shit show."
"I’m Perdita in pastoral exile singing prettily to my flowers."
"I’m Lady M ablaze with dark ambition, pleading for the night to fall thick, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes."
"I haven’t fallen off the stage yet. My life is still ahead of me, not behind."
"She’ll help me down the stairs. But I never want to go. Do I have to go?"
"The sweet smell of spring wafts in through my open office window."
"Standing crookedly in the far corner of a series of disasters that harden my limbs."
"I attempt to close my eyes, and it’s no good."
"I’m a shining tower of calm behind the curtain."
"I’m roses. They gasped a little when I entered the theater."
"Oh, children. I’m wonderful. All’s well. All’s well here."
"The colors were so entrancing, the iridescence so shimmering."
"I’ve never seen it like that. Well, you know All’s Well That Ends Well. It’s a hit."
"The sun is still in its zenith. My hip still in its socket, labrum untorn, my spine a supple S."
"Life’s but a walking shadow. A poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more."