Quotes from Sarah Manguso

There are no memories, just artifacts. And they're all lying.

Great talents encourage great incapacities, but maintaining an inability to cook an egg or drive a car won't make you into a genius.

It's easier to speak to a crowd, to stare into the spotlight, than it is to look into a human face.

The will can achieve some things, but one must exhaust one's will in order to learn which things they are.

My friend who runs marathons, throws elaborate parties, sews quilts for everyone she knows, works full-time, and has three children does all of this not in spite of her useless husband but because of him.

With each of his new misfortunes I'm punished further, with secret guilt, for wishing all of it on him, long ago.

I was like that once, and I'm not like that anymore.

Assume that the most annoying person you know, the one who won't leave you alone, is in love with you.

I knew I was grown up when I spent time with them and felt not just the weight of my old memories but the weight of theirs, from when they were children.

I understood things then. Somehow I became confused in the ensuing years.

When I kissed him goodnight he said, Again! and I kissed him again.

One of the great solaces of my life is that I no longer need to wonder whether I'll have children.

Today was very full, but the problem isn't today. It's tomorrow. I'd be able to recover from today if it weren't for tomorrow. There should be extra days, buffer days, between the real days.

Sincerity that pure was impossible to include in my life then, and I had to turn away. It was like looking at the sun.

Perfect happiness is the privilege of deciding when things end. But then you have to find a new happiness.

But I'm doing her a favor, letting her escape her suffering into mine.

When I indulge in envy, I envy everyone who has ever achieved anything.

The most likable person you know just might be a sociopath.

I suspect competence follows from an ability to believe oneself competent.

Worry is impatience for the next horror.

Maybe that's what I should be wishing for instead.

I don't know myself as well as I used to .

I realize I don't envy them exactly; I envy a hybrid monster with some qualities of each woman but all of neither—a monster I dreamt up specifically to envy.

Does the first time matter that much?