Quotes from Elizabeth Mckenzie

Veblen espoused the Veblenian opinion that wanting a big house full of cheaply produced versions of so-called luxury items was teh greatest soul-sucking trap of modern civilization, and that these copycat mansions away from the heart and soul of a city had ensnared their overmortgaged owners - yes, trapped and relocated them like pests.

Art is despait with dignity.

Paul made a show of choosing an appropriate wine from the list, and Edna Valley Chardonnay, and the waiter made a show of presenting him the bottle and decanting him a taste, and Paul made a show of tasting and approving, and the waiter made a show of pouring for everyone,...

I want to meet muckrakers, carousers, the sweet-toothed, and the lion-hearted, and you don't know if yet, but you are all of these.

Who cares if she called you?" Veblen cried out. There was a time when abreacting to her mother was out of the question, untenable. The slightest ripple between them terrified her. She was aware that her mother had trained her to turn herself inside out, like a pocket to be inspected for pilfered change.

She noticed real tension in Paul's jaw, his mandibles pulled back like

Don't worry about it." "When you're me, there's always something to worry about. Everything goes wrong for me, and you know it.

William Morris, her mother's hero, had blind spots. He was seen as effete and ridiculous by Professor Veblen after he paid Morris a visit in England. Veblen came home and blasted Morris's Kelmscott Press and the whole Arts and Crafts movement for producing overly precious items for the wealthy, the only ones who could afford them—decadent aestheticism, he called it.

It was the beginning of the future, and I had the thought at that moment there was no one in the world who would ever understand my version of things.

You see, the work of maintaining your life with your own skills was never counted in hours. The days were long and arduous, but there was no wishing them to go by.

According to Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig, the Swiss analyst and author of Marriage: Dead or Alive , a wedding is more than a party or a legality. It's not less than a boxing ring, two people facing off, acknowledging their separate identities rather than their union, in the company of all the people who lay claim to them. A wedding is the time and place to recognize the full clutch of the past in the negotiation of a shared future.

So it makes sense for the tips of icebergs to fall in love, without knowing anything about the bottom parts?

More was expected of her, her usual engagement replete with queries and analysis and a kind of domestication of the topic so that it became like a furry pet with a life of its own, all of which he had come to depend on. The way a cat depends on your petting when it puts. The purring forces you to keep petting. Even after you're tired. Even after you want to move on. Veblen has been detained countless hours in neighborhood walks, not sure when to break away, by purring cats.

That's good, to be in the habit of saying sure.

You can't wreck anything. You only make things great.

My family." "No! You never mentioned that." She had noticed an endearing pattern: whenever Paul felt guilty or in need of affection, he'd tell a painful story about his past.

It was roaring, sweeping, aching, bending, a torrent carrying her away.

This town is infested with squirrels, have you noticed?" "I'd rather say it's rich with squirrels.

Was this the stuff married life would be made of, two people making way for the confounding spectacle of the other, bewildered and slightly afraid?

The sharing of simple meals and discussing the day's events, of waking up together with plans for the future, things that feel practically bacchanalian when you're used to being on your own.

It's so weird how people like hamsters so much better than squirrels," Veblen added, knowing that hamsters were hindgut fermenters and coprophagists, whereas squirrels were nothing of the sort.

Was it arrogant to think a squirrel was following you around?

I pledge allegiance, to the marketplace, of the United States of America. TM. And to the conglomerates, for which we shill, one nation under Exxon-Mobile/Halliburton/Boeing/Walmart, nonrefundable, with litter and junk mail for all!

See? You're using the stoic glacier method." "Remind me, what's the stoic glacier method?" "It's the slow process of shaping someone's behavior by force of one's own personal stoicism.