The Last Little Blue Envelope Quotes
"People always say they can't do things, that they're impossible. They just haven't been creative enough. This pool is a triumph of imagination. That's how you win at life, Gin. You have to imagine your way through. Never say something can't be done. There's always a solution, even if it's weird."
"The adventures of the summer had been a triumph of imagination. You could make something amazing out of something awful."
"I’ll have a cup of tea," Oliver said. "Virginia, I hope you’ve been keeping well."
"I see," Cecil said. "So, have you come here today with the new work?"
"It’s fine," she said. "But I guess I have to go."
"It’s fine," Ginny said. That conversation needed to end. "I’ll take the back."
"Don’t worry about the car," Keith said, jiggling the key. "Worry about yourself."
"Yes," Keith said slowly, with mock patience, "you told us that already. But can you be a bit more specific than that?"
"The heater was a concept joke that was probably funnier closer to the vents in the dashboard."
"Greece is a fine place to be. ... This is where the Big Questions were forged out of the stuff that had been eating at mankind’s collective brain for millennia—the big What the hell is going on?"
"I’d love to be an airplane that crossed the Atlantic twice a day. I’d love to be the Tivoli fountain, where poets have perched for hundreds of years, and tourists have come to understand the joy of living art."
"My disease has taken me on a journey of wonder, Gin. Wonder, and a lot of trying to buy bread at the post office."
"I want us to make a painting together. ... I am making one picture out of different materials that I have placed around in various spots."
"No one 'gets' Paris after one visit. No one."
"It’s never good when there’s a note on the door of a shop or restaurant. It never means, ‘We’re open and everything is working just fine.’"
"I could eat one of those little dogs. I am honestly that hungry."
"The Dutch are famous for their open windows. No curtains. No blinds. Their houses are on display."
"What’s art, Gin? What’s beauty? What makes my strange drawings or pile of stuff a work and not just junk? I think something is art when it is created with intention—serious intention. Even crazy intention. And I think something is beautiful if it reveals something important about what it means to be alive."
"You know that right, Gin? You are the common denominator in all of this. And don’t lump me in with him. I’ve never lied to you. I’ve been very careful about that. I hate lying. I’m not a thief, and I’m not a liar."
"I would have felt stupid leaving the key to my inheritance on an I-love-London key chain on top of the fridge. You have to have some style when you’re leaving things from the beyond."
"I don’t think you want advice from me, that’s all."
"I don’t know. Maybe you like all the rules, the backtracking, the games. I think it’s annoying."
"This car . . . well . . . to call her a car doesn’t do justice to her spirit, her sense of adventure. You lived fast, my friend . . . well, not that fast, but fastish . . ."
"When the muse moves me, I have to shake it. You know that. I know that. I cannot resist a bodhrán."
"It was astonishing what a good job she had done."
"Whatever effects the champagne had on Ginny were washed away in the rain and sea mist."
"At least this time she knew—the journey was over."
"I predict this is going to be a very vomity trip."
"She wasn’t aware of falling asleep, only of someone shaking her shoulder."
"You’re so good. And the Irish, they’re just so lovely, and they give you this... they give you things to drink because they’re so lovely... you know, and it’s New Year’s... I’m so stupid. I’m so stupid, Gin. Why am I so stupid?"
"The train was very sleek and modern, with lots of light-up buttons and computerized signs."
"It was snide and cold. So cold that she wished she could slap him."
"It’s always easier to say good-bye when you know it’s just a prelude to hello."