Quotes from Elizabeth Mckenzie

By clearly emphasizing all that was lacking in others, by mapping and raising to an art form the catalog of their flaws, Veblen's mother had inversely punched out a template for an ideal human being, and it was the unspoken assumption that Veblen would aspire to this template with all her might.

Thorstein Veblen would say people hate squirrels, she called up to him, "because that's the only way to motivate expenditure on them - such as buying traps or guns. It's the same with stirring up patriotic emotionalism, because it justifies expenditures for defense.

When you entered the cavern of another language, you could leave certain people behind, for they had no interest in following you in. You could, by way of translation, emerge from the cavern and share your adventures with them. You didn't have to be an intellectual in a black beret smoking clove cigarettes to be a translator, not at all. You could become one in your blue flannel pajamas, your face smeared with Clearsil. You did.

A life could be spent like an apology—to prove you had been worth it.

We employed a stocky Yorkshire woman to walk me home from school past the barbershop with the unhappy mynah bird. "Kill me!" it suggested as we passed by.

Art is despair with dignity.

Do you think wishful thinking is a psychiatric condition?

The Flying squirrel flies, and the Irksome squirrel irks. The Spinning squirrel spins and the Smirking squirrel smirks. The Crapulous craps and the Lurking lurks; But when the Talking squirrel talks, none but a Listening Human works.

While we're talking about my dreams, about how I'm gloomy and combative, and about displacing those feelings onto my pillow instead of my loved ones.

HER OWN VISION of the future was of happiness in the air. Something was baking. Children were playing games. There were flowers and substantial trees, and birds were singing in their nests. She was living with someone who was laughing.

She'd let her eyes water so the view was blurry, which gave certain qualities of the world neglected by clear eyesight the chance to come forth, such as the shocking beauty of color, and she remembered this with compassion for that silly young self, which had deserved to have her hand held.

That until now she was a Christmas tree that had been decorated by someone who hated Christmas.

If you love it enough, anything will talk with you." —G. W. CARVER

Veblen, you may not know it now, but marriage affects everything that happens to you. Your mate becomes the mirror in which you see yourself. If he doesn't see you as a beautiful pearl, you'll wither.

She counted on herself to withstand everything. And yet, who said she had to? What would happen if she broke down now and then?

It bothered Veblen's mother that most people were lazy and had given up original thought a long time ago, stealing stale phrases from the media like magpies.

He says marriage is a continuous inevitable confrontation that can be resolved only through death.

She had once concluded everyone on earth was a servant to the previous generation—born from the body's factory for entertainment and use. A life could be spent like an apology—to prove you had been worth it.

And yet - with those well-marked whiskers, and that topcoat, and the notable scruff, a squirrel who cared and followed you everywhere - wouldn't that be nice?

It is one kind of trouble to kiss your fiancé good-bye in the morning and immediately turn your thoughts to another man. But it's another kind altogether if the other man has been dead for nine decades, or is of the genus Sciurus.

She had a lot of practice standing things because she had to stand them, which was a hard habit to break.

Are you committed to having a really strange life?" She laughed. "Probably. What do you mean?

And from a branch in the tall tree, a small gray squirrel released a mighty roar.

Part of her wanted to do all the normal bridely things and the other part wanted to embrace her disdain for everything of the sort.