The Last Housewife Quotes
"I grew up with the looking, grew into it. So that even today, alone in the backyard, I can still feel those phantom eyes and shape my body to the audience."
"To wonder if the eyes of those men hadn’t simply burned me deep enough when I was young, so the scars were still sparking years later."
"The trouble was the ending: I couldn’t fathom it, and without that, the words wouldn’t flow."
"How in a twist of irony one could become a piece of art rather than an artist."
"But always, always, a grand finale of quiet contemplation when the lights went out."
"The attraction was obvious: a morbid fascination with our own mortality."
"The Performing Arts Center meant something to Laurel."
"You look happy, I reminded myself. Especially from far away."
"There aren’t any pictures of her included in the police record—which is strange, by the way."
"There was this second where I was confused. He was weighing me down, fumbling, and I didn’t understand."
"I’d pressed Play on Jamie’s episode like Cleopatra sliding the lid off the woven basket, unaware of the coiled asp inside."
"You ever climbed a tree and tied a noose to hang yourself? The cuts were from that."
"Sometimes I’d find her in the backyard, just standing there, staring at nothing."
"She knew nothing about catering, but she seemed desperate for the job."
"I bet you didn’t tell your Whitney friends you were a beauty queen, though. I know the kinds of girls who go to that school. They’d eat you alive."
"Once, I’d kneaded dough naked on my hands and knees, and I’d liked it."
"I should’ve been shocked, or repulsed, but instead I thought, How does he know?"
"On the ride home everyone was silent. I was already thinking about going back."
"I’m not trying to make you feel bad. But what the fuck with that gender essentialism?"
"I stood across the street from 7 Fox Lane at midnight, hidden in the coal-black night like a vengeful ghost."
"The past wrapped its fingers around my throat and squeezed."
"The man in black’s voice rose higher: 'What is that, Paters?'"
"I don’t care how I’m supposed to act, Cal. This is what I care about. Here in New York."
"Sometimes, when you have a feeling deep in your gut, you have to trust your instincts."
"You were always good at making decisions for us."
"I'm not interested in wasting any more of my time."
"You know the rules. Every day, you get on your fucking hands and your knees and you worship me."
"We need to prepare for every man we out as a Pater to come after us."
"I’m not going to jail. I was only getting grounded. I should’ve been happy. But I was devastated."
"I burned down his classroom and walked away, so maybe I have agency, too, Jamie."
"My whole life has been like that. Starts and stops. Doing something brave, getting something right, then messing up, burning all the progress to the ground."
"In one sense, it's natural: we all want to be capable of attracting others. That's nothing to sneer at. But on the larger whole, I wonder if our obsession with beauty is a vestigial instinct, one that shows women haven't made the kinds of gains in hard power we should have, so we still need the assist."
"If a beautiful woman is the last person left on earth, does her beauty matter?"
"Beauty is always a two-way street. So who holds the true power: the beautiful person or the person looking?"
"You are beautiful, Jessica Miller. Sometimes, when I thought of myself like a spreadsheet, all my assets tallied, I was filled with pride at how objectively good I’d become."
"But no matter how I tried to deny it, the shadow list would whisper: You only became a consultant out of desperation."
"I never could tell which story was right—Exceptional Jessica, or Mediocre Jessica."
"I looked at the banner hanging over my dining table, spelling out C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S-! I’d left it there since my party two weeks ago, celebrating my promotion."
"This was why Homecoming was so important. No part of my life looked like I’d imagined during college."
"For a second, eighteen-year-old Jessica Miller looked back at me, virgin hair undyed and in need of the kind of haircut that didn’t exist in Norfolk, Virginia."
"I wanted them to see perfection. I ached for it in the deep, dark core of me: to be so good I left other people in the dust."
"You may have technically been in your homes or your cars, but for all purposes, you stormed the castle. And now you know—the whole country knows—that you not only brought down the Paters, but you helped save Shay Evans’s life."
"I’m going to start, actually, with a transgression, because I’m a longtime listener, and I know that’s what you do here. My transgression is that I don’t regret killing him. Not for a second."