The Beach Club Quotes
"Things don’t always work out the way we want them to. Alas, I have learned this the hard way."
"Your decision, but this is what your father left you."
"His life had been pared down to increments of thirty days."
"She compared the neighborhood where she grew up to a Holiday Inn—every living space alike in its absolute sterility."
"He didn’t want to take it—or anything else—too seriously."
"This is where I’m going to meet the father of my child."
"Money can only get you so much. It can’t cure your cancer or get you love. It can’t make you fertile."
"What good was she if she couldn’t share with people what she’d learned?"
"They wanted to be coddled; they wanted to be courted."
"Why do you call them ‘the children’? Fred and I are also your children."
"You people don’t need to be playing tennis. You need to be dealing with your issues."
"If you have nothing nice to say, say nothing at all."
"Parents aren’t allowed to think about themselves."
"I liked having dinner ready for her. I cleaned the house and did the laundry, too. My mother called me her housewife. And I thought of it as practical training."
"There are times when I’m ashamed of my mother."
"Some people don’t like being happy. They’re much more comfortable when they have a problem."
"It’s less than two weeks until the Fourth of July. The summer is flying by."
"When I was six years old, my parents belonged to a swim club. One day my sister and I were sitting on the edge of the pool while my parents did laps and when they were both at the other end of the pool, I pushed my sister in. She sank to the bottom like a lead weight."
"That was what a club was about: Being recognized, belonging."
"It was too much money for almost anybody to afford—and definitely too much money for the couple spreading their towels under a royal blue umbrella."
"I don’t see it here," Cecily said. She didn’t meet the man’s eyes.
"Would you please let us stay, sweetie?" she asked. "Just for today? I’m afraid in this sun I’ll positively fry up."
"I can’t let you stay," Cecily said. She felt horrible; she felt like a child or an angry neighbor saying "Get off of my property!"
"It’s the small courtesies that make a place stand out."
"We want you to be happy, Mrs. Higgens," Cecily said. "However, if you’re not comfortable with people of other races on the beach, then I guess you’ll have to find another beach club."
"I don’t want the hotel," Cecily said. "I’m sorry to say it, Daddy, but I’m not interested."
"I’ve decided to defer a year before I go to college, because I want to do some traveling."
"Happy Independence Day," she said. She stomped down the stairs and left the house, slamming the door behind her.
"I’m just going away for a year, okay. How about that? A year abroad. I’ll be back next summer."
"I’ve asked Maribel to marry me and she said yes."
"I just can’t picture you as a farmer," Bill said.
"I’m afraid I don’t have the energy for a big emotional good-bye," she said.
"I’m just saying what I think you should do, as a decent person."
"It’s the kind of love that hurts whenever I breathe."
"This isn’t the kind of thing you hope to get away with at the age of eighteen."
"I’m sure you two are pissed like never before, and I’m sorry."
"I had to chase this feeling because it’s the best feeling I’ve ever had."
"It might be nice if there was a hotel left to pass on."
"We’re engaged, Mack. See this? It means we’re part of a team."
"I’m not angry anymore, Mama. I’m beyond angry."
"Nobody knows where it comes from, and nobody knows where it goes."
"She listened to Mack cry, shushing him every once in a while, marveling at how her love for him was like something she held underwater—as soon as she let go, it bobbed to the surface."
"Hope I don’t disappear. Hope I land somewhere safely."
"I’ll be your friend, Mack, I’ll be your friend."
"We have to hope. When I’m dying and ready to go, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to hope with all my heart."
"But now she was dead. Not only was Bill deeply saddened by the loss but he knew what this meant: he was next."
"That’s terrific, you guys. Man, is that great. Congratulations."
"The problem with funerals, Mack decided, was that they never did a person justice."