The Paper Palace Quotes
"Things come from nowhere. The mind is empty and then, inside the frame, a pear."
"The world should listen then, as I am listening now."
"I could look at him and nothing else for eternity and be happy."
"The best lesson my mother ever taught me: there are two things in life you never regret—a baby and a swim."
"If you want to make Peter happy when he comes home from work, put on a fresh blouse, put in your diaphragm, and smile."
"The shock of being called an asshole by his grandmother has gotten Jack up off the sofa."
"There is no such thing as unforgivable between people who love each other."
"Divorce is good for children. Unhappy people are always more interesting."
"In my mother's world, the men are given the respect."
"The house is filled with chocolate Labradors with names like Cora and Blue, and the constant smell of rising yeast."
"When Nanette decided it was time to go home and do what her parents had wanted her to do in the first place. So she married a banker."
"I watched as Jonas peeled wax dripping off a candle as Finn had just done. He molded the wax between his fingers absent-mindedly."
"If only that rule still applied to you, Wallace," Peter called over.
"In the photo, my mother is sitting astride a palomino horse. She is fifteen. Behind her, a young boy dressed in white walks down the dusty road pushing a wooden wheelbarrow; open fields stretch toward lava cliffs in the rugged foothills of a shrouded volcano."
"It reminds me of Michelangelo’s David: a split second carved in eternal time, the instant before the throw—right before everything changes."
"My mother has always had a mini-crush on Peter. She’s not wrong. He’s a wonderful man. A towering hickory. Gentle but never weak."
"Sometimes I want to tear him limb from limb, but that’s probably the definition of marriage."
"I can see the ancient hieroglyphics on Cleopatra’s Needle through the blooms."
"The rocks smell sweet and clean. It’s the first real day of spring, and they are airing themselves in the sun after a long winter hibernating under banks of snow and dog shit."
"I hear the distant crack of a baseball, a sudden happy cheering."
""Why is that bad?" I ask. "Nice is the enemy of interesting.""
""Frankly, I’m with her, but don’t you dare repeat that. They aren’t very likable children."
"I’m stuck in a redbrick time warp with girls who play field hockey and live on Ex-Lax."
"I feel like I’ve stepped into one of those black-and-white society movies where everyone lives in an apartment with fifteen-foot ceilings and wears fur stoles to lunch."
"I’m exhausted. All I’ve eaten in the past twelve hours is a piece of moldy cheese. And my socks are wet."
"The apartment stinks of cigarettes; there are newspaper fingerprints on the walls, on the light switches, on the backs of the chairs."
"The water is warmer than I expected, fresher."
"She’s old and frail, and she’s waiting for me."
"I have been sick at heart since Granny died, my mind stuck in a loop of regret and self-recrimination."
"You have no right to cry," I whisper in his ear.
"The most wonderful thing about my grandmother, among many wonderful things, is that everything is always the same."
"As far as I’m concerned, my father and the Bitch can have everything."
"I reach over to the bookcase behind his head, pull my grandfather’s treasured first edition of The Great Gatsby off the shelf. 'I’m taking this for Anna.'"
"Peter takes a hand off the wheel, puts his arm around me. 'Scooch over,' he says, and pulls me tight to his side."
"A small pink plastic spoon drifts by. Baskin-Robbins, probably."
"‘Then why didn’t you?’ ‘You asked me to choose,’ I say."
"Just because you don’t like conceptual art doesn’t mean the rest of the world is wrong."
"‘I thought I saw my father,’ I say. ‘I don’t speak to him anymore.’"
"I don’t want to be nothing anymore... no more trees, no more you—just a pile of flesh rotting away."
"‘I was worried you were going to keep sulking.’ ‘I was. But apparently I have the backbone of a snake.’"
"I never said anything about marriage. I just said I wanted to wait until I fell in love."
"‘I’m pretending I haven’t seen it,’ I overheard my mother saying."
"‘I’m so happy to be here, I can’t stand it,’ I said to no one."
"The appeal of tomato juice laced with clam has always puzzled me."
"We are not a family of cowards, girls. We face our fears head on."
"The cemetery is prettier than I remember—an arboretum of mature flowering trees and shaded slopes giving way to wide lawns dotted with the gray teeth of the dead."
"Someone has recently left a bouquet of fresh flowers."
"They’re grassier because there are more worms in the soil. Think about it."
"A stupid kid who dreamed of being Hulk Hogan, who loved his mother more than she loved him."
"I tell him I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve this. You did something terrible, I say, but I did something worse."
"It’s tragic. I interviewed a schoolteacher who’s already had three of his students murdered this year."
"The whole time he was raping me, he kept saying your name."
"My brother was a monster. Every night I prayed to God he would die."
"The only thing you need to know is that every good story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end, with the end foreshadowed in the beginning."
"Hummingbirds are the only birds that can fly backward."