words i read and loved

[wordsireadandloved]

Subhash gripped the wall with his hands, hugging it to his chest, scraping his knees. As usual he was uncertain whether he was more frustrated by Udayan's daring, or with himself for his lack of it. Subhash was thirteen, older by fifteen months. But he had no sense of himself without Udayan. From his earliest memories, at every point, his brother was there.

Jhumpa Lahiri, The Lowland

[wordsireadandloved]

“You laugh,” Mathilde said. “But my children would come out with fangs and claws.” Bette looked at her. “I hide mine well,” Mathilde said.

Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies

[wordsireadandloved]

'What are you thinking about?' Wade asked his mother. ‘You have that I’ve-got-a-secret look on your face.’ ‘Nothing really. Well, actually my mother. You never really knew her.’ ‘I did a little bit,” Wade said. ‘Grandma Kaye.  She never talked and she smelled like skin cream.’ ‘No she didn’t talk much,” Janet said. ‘Did she?’ Wade went on: ‘What were you thinking about her?’ ‘How her life wasn’t much of a story – nothing wrong with that, look at mine. But I keep on thinking that if I look at my life long enough, there’ll be a sort of grand logic to it – a scheme. But I don’t think there is.’

Douglas Copeland, All Families Are Psychotic

[wordsireadandloved]

Beth hesitated. 'I've been having these tests done over the past two weeks. But the full results didn't arrive until this morning. It turns out— ' She bit her lip. 'I don't have AIDS. I've never even been exposed to HIV. Nobody ever checked up on what turns out was a false positive three years ago. I'm . . . negative.' There was a long silence. Debbie said, 'Well, congratulations, Beth.' 'No — you don't understand,' Beth said. 'This disease is my life. I got off smack because of it. I stopped drinking. I found the Lord because of it. And I have all of you people as my friends because of it — and it is gone now. And I don't know what to do. There's nothing else in my life. I work as a croupier at Harrah’s, and that’s all there is to my life. Suddenly it's so small and I feel invisible. Last week I was fifty-foot tall brave survivor, and now I'm . . . a mosquito.'

Douglas Copeland, All Families Are Psychotic

[wordsireadandloved]

On the walkway outside her room, Janet heard children mewling as they set off to Walt Disney World with their families. She walked to the bathroom across a floor made lunar from eons of cigarette burns and various stains better left uninvestigated. She thought of serial murderers using acids to dissolve the teeth and jawbones of their victims.

She unsuspectingly caught sight of herself in a floor-length mirror by the sink and the sight stopped her cold. Yes, Janet, that's correct: you are shrinking -- sinew by sinew, protein molecule by protein molecule you are turning into an ... an elf, yes, you, Janet Drummond, once voted 'Girl We'd Rob a Bank For .'

Douglas Copeland, All Families Are Psychotic

[wordsireadandloved]

She'd always hated pregnant ladies. The original Trojan horses, they. Horrible to think that inside a human being there could be a human being. A separate brain thinking its separate thoughts. Much later, at the grocery store, Mathilde would watch a woman swollen to bursting, reaching up for the popsicles on the high shelf, and she’d imagine what it was like to have a person inside one that one hadn’t swallowed whole. One that wasn't doomed from the start.

Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies

[wordsireadandloved]

'So he's out marlin fishing with Nickie then?'

'Yeah. With Nickie.'

'That cheesy slut.'

'Mom?'

'Wade, I'm not a saint. I've been holding stuff inside me for decades – girls my age were trained to do that, and it's why we all have colitis. Besides, a dash of spicy language is refreshing every so often.

Douglas Copeland, All Families Are Psychotic

[wordsireadandloved]

In her mind's eye, her parents' faces turned to twin smears. Was there a moustache atop her father's lip? Was her mother bright blond or dark? She forgot the smell of the farmhouse where she'd been born, the crunch of gravel under her shoes, the perpetual twilight in the kitchen even when the lights were on. The wolf spun, settled in her chest, snored there.

Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies

[wordsireadandloved]

It seems to me risky to forget that no one gave us the freedoms we have today—we took them. For that very reason they can at any moment be taken away again. So just that, we mustn’t ever lower our guard. It’s wonderful to give oneself fully to another, we women know how to do it. And we should continue. It’s a serious mistake to retreat, giving up the marvelous feelings we’re capable of. Yet it’s indispensable to keep alive the sense of self. In Naples, certain girls who showed the marks of beatings would say, even with pleased half smiles, He hits me because he loves me. No one can dare to hurt us because he loves us, not a lover, not a friend, not even children.

Elena Ferrante

[wordsireadandloved]

Florian continued, 'You know, Janet, there are a number of ways of treating cancer that the New York Times hasn't heard about yet, and might well not for a while.' 'How so?' 'You see, fixing cancer is one thing, but fixing society is another. Curing a huge disease like cancer would effectively wipe out the insurance industry and consequently the banking system. For each year we increase the average life span, we generate a massive financial crisis. That's what the twentieth century was about - absorbing, year by year, our increased life spans.'

Douglas Copeland, All Families Are Psychotic

[oiseauperdu-deactivated20210420]

“Find out what makes you kinder, what opens you up and brings out the most loving, generous, and unafraid version of you―and go after those things as if nothing else matters. Because, actually, nothing does.”

— George Saunders

[wordsireadandloved]

Four iced teas were plunked onto the table. From his attache case Norm removed a flask of peppermint schnapps. 'The favored beverage of teenagers around the world. It rots my gut, but leaves my breath minty fresh. Life is such a collection of little trade-offs.'

Douglas Copeland, All Families Are Psychotic

[wordsireadandloved]

Marriage is made of lies. Kind ones, mostly. Omissions. If you give voice to the things you think every day about your spouse, you’d crush them to paste. She never lied. Just never said.

Lauren Groff, Fates and Furies

[wordsireadandloved]

I’ve never felt narcissism to be a sin. It seems, rather, a cognitive tool that, like all cognitive tools, can be used in a distorted way. No, I think it’s necessary to be absolutely in love with ourselves. It’s only by reflecting on myself with attention and care that I can reflect on the world. It’s only by turning my gaze on myself that I can understand others, feel them as my kin. On the other hand it’s only by assiduously watching myself that I can take control and train myself to give the best of myself. The woman who practises surveillance on herself without letting herself be the object of surveillance is the great innovation of our times.

Elena Ferrante

[wordsireadandloved]

I know the Singer know that plenty people hate him, but I wonder if he know what shape that hate take.

Marlon James, A Brief History of Seven Killings

[wordsireadandloved]

People are pretty forgiving when it comes to other people's family. The only family that ever horrifies you is your own.

Douglas Copeland, All Families Are Psychotic

[wordsireadandloved]

Still the hypocritical prick acting out some corny 1960s idea of manhood. Wade knew that his father had dropped his mother quite cruelly and was now living the life of Mr. Salt-and-Pepper Chest Hair, with his shirts wide open, his golf clubs leaned just inside the front door, and a trophy wife somewhere in the near distance plopping a Gipsy Kings CD into a slot. Wade felt that at a certain point in their lives, most people passionlessly assess what they have and what they lack — and then go about making the best of it — like an actor who goes from playing leads to playing character roles; like a party girl who goes from being a zany kook to being a cautionary tale for the younger girls.

Douglas Copeland, All Families Are Psychotic