Quotes From My First Four Reads of 2021

“All human life has its seasons, and no one’s personal chaos can be permanent: winter, after all, does not last forever, does it?”

“When Perry sat down in front of the judge to be arraigned, Truman nudged Nelle. “Look, his feet don’t touch the floor!” Nelle said nothing, but thought, “ Oh, oh! This is the beginning of a great love affair.” In fact, their relationship was more complicated than a love affair: each looked at the other and saw, or thought he saw, the man he might have been.”

“Any woman who took his advice, whatever her age or position in life, he looked upon as his protégée, a work of art that needed only his word or hand to bring her to perfection.”

“I was having an emotion, and I hate that.”

“Disinformation, which is the same as lying but for some reason has a different name, is the top tactic in corporate negotiation/warfare.”

“But they were humans— who knows why they did anything?”

“I wanted so badly to please him and my mom. I was simply incapable. What happens when you live with a tiger that you can’t please is that you’re always afraid.”

“You never know who’s going to hold the keys to the castle. It’s tempting to think you’re too important to speak to the young intern who’s been sent to interview you or the blogger who only has fifty followers. But if they approach you respectfully and earnestly, you should never be so stupid and arrogant as to dismiss them. If you brush off one too many smart kids, you’re bound to make a lifelong enemy out of a future media mogul.”

“The paradox for the workaholic is that rock bottom is the top of whatever profession they’re in.”

“If you want to help her, you need to help yourself first. No one serves their friends by grinding themselves into dust on the altar of compassion.”

“She was ordinary. She was remarkable. Of such commonplace contradictions are weapons made.”

“In the way of bookish children, she carried her books into trees and along the banks of chuckling creeks, weaving her way along their slippery shores with the sort of grace that belongs only to bibliophiles protecting their treasures.”