Quotes from Andrew Martin

Leslie didn't feel welcome, though she recognized that this was, again, mostly her problem. Wasn't alienation always your own fault? People were what they were. You could either get in line and find a way to make it work or be a soul adrift upon the wandering etc. People could surprise you. People were interesting. The problem was you.

She really was an excellent host, however many people her family had enslaved and murdered.

Julia's defining quality, maybe, was her combination of outer normality, even placidity, and a roiling, crazily volatile inner life that expressed itself mainly in her writing.

New York, which I had complained about for so long, became a beacon, a place I missed terribly whenever I was away and then glutted myself on until I was sick when I came back. You move away from the city and suddenly everyone wants to have drinks. Nobody'll hang out unless you leave.

What happens at the end of a story? Something changes, or it doesn't. I like it best when things just stop.

What do you actually care about?" "People," I said. "All right, E.M. Forster.

But it was true that I preferred to do nothing.

My hope, as always, was that someone else would make the decision for me, absolve me of the little responsibility I had.

She was nauseous with anticipation . . . even as she knew that, even on TV, these kinds of things never seemed to actually work out.

She'd been surprised by the pang that the idea of the place gave her. She didn't think of herself as a romantic about location, even though she was secretly romantic about everything.

How can I make your difficult life more tolerable?" "Just be nice to me, I guess? My brain doesn't work.

But won't you miss me?" . . . "I already do," he said.

I have a pretty clear memory of most of that night, but even while it was happening, it was like a dream, where you do things you don't want to do but can't control your own actions.

Did you ever have the problem where you don't want to go where you're supposed to be, but you can't go where you want to be?

I don't even like most people.

the dreamy endlessness of the afternoons spent deep in her own mind.