Bad Behavior Quotes
"It had been a long time since he’d felt his life was in danger of further ruin, and it was fun to think it was still possible."
"He liked to watch her pattering from desk to desk in her white sneakers, her jeans rasping softly between her small thighs with each narrow stride."
"He once took a series of blue-and-white photos of the cow skeleton they had in the living room."
"By Sunday the loft floor would be scattered with wax papers covered with splotches of acrylic paint, sprayed with water and running together in dull purple streams."
"He supported her by working in the bookstore as an accountant and by selling drugs."
"On Sunday Joey would come home from work with bags under his eyes and his tendons standing out in funny ways."
"They made love about once a month. It didn’t last long because they both thought it was monotonous."
"He giggled and put his arm around her. He sadly let go of his shadow captive."
"Sometimes, though, he thought Daisy was sort of a stupid little thing."
"I specialize in love—let me work on you."
"She was always crouching at Evelyn’s desk, whispering and laughing about something, or looking at Evelyn’s back issues of True Detective magazine."
"She wore T-shirts with pictures of cartoon characters on them, and bright-colored pants."
"He liked the idea of being near her, protecting her."
"She had watched Daisy for almost a year before making a pass at her."
"I want to cast my mantle of protection over you."
"She was a tall, handsome thirty-three-year-old woman with taut, knit-together shoulders."
"The world was disorderly and unbeautiful."
"Her short skirt was blown up by the force of his threatening expression, and her panties showed."
"The lie turned out to be a mistake. Not only was she unimpressed by his false attorneyhood, she was an animal lover."
"The cute stories he could’ve told about all the kittens and puppies that came into his office, clinging to the shirts of their owners, the birds with broken wings in white-spattered boxes!"
"I guess I somehow got used to thinking of you as my own little girl. I didn’t like the idea that you were with some other guy. Silly, huh?"
"I’m sorry I’m being so shitty," she said. "I just hate this job and this place."
"This is so nice and glamorous," he said.
"I love to walk down the street and look at people," began Leisha.
"I’m so sick and tired of hearing the words ‘directed’ and ‘career,’ I could scream."
"I want to work at Dunkin’ Donuts when I get out of school. I want to get fat. Or be addicted to heroin. I want to be a disaster."
"It’s just that I’m getting tired of feeling like a stupid … well, a stupid cunt. I want to do something with my talent. I know I’ve got talent."
"To meet fascinating creatures I’d never meet in the usual course of my life. Like you."
"She wasn’t a directionless girl adrift in a monstrous city, wandering from one confusing social situation to the next, having stupid affairs. She was a bohemian, experimenting."
"I would like to actually fuck you sometime, but I don’t think you enjoy sex here. I don’t want it if you can’t enjoy yourself."
"I’m dependable. I could answer an ad for somebody dependable."
"If I had quit every job I’ve had on those grounds, you would’ve all starved. Maybe that’s what I should’ve done."
"I don’t want to think about another job right now."
"Everybody gets mangled a little during the first few months."
"Don’t worry, Connie. In fifteen years, I’ll be doing my retrospective at the Whitney and you’ll be publishing regularly in The New Yorker."
"She wasn’t just a straight-out bitch. It wasn’t that simple."
"With that hat on, you look like you’ve got a piece of the world in your pocketbook."
"It felt like a blank space, silent and empty, so lonely that if she hadn’t remembered it was all nitrous oxide–induced, she might’ve cried."
"Could these really be the things she did every day?"
"It’s terse, it’s quirky, it tricks you into thinking you’re safe, and then you find yourself on the edge of a cliff."
"If you did blurbs for novels they’d read ‘Mediocre! raves Constance Weymouth.’"
"He never likes anything I like. I don’t know why he hired me."
"I know I am just Tootles and nobody minds me."
"You think you know what you’re doing, but you don’t."
"I was surprised by Lily’s appearance. She had not imagined such a serious face."
"Virginia’s cigarette glowed in a metal ashtray."
"Her words sounded disconnected, not only from her but from each other."
"Magdalen has real charm. She can charm the birds off the trees."
"Her voice was soft and blurry in the fan."
"Virginia was astonished at the things she told Lily during these afternoons."
"That’s how I always thought of you too, even when you were awful. You were always golden."
"She remembered how Magdalen used to run around and make so much noise."
"They all sat in lawn chairs and ate from the warm plates in their laps. The steak was good and rare; its juices ran into the salad and pasta when Virginia moved her knees."