Quotes from Meg Wolitzer

Their hands were on each other—on Zee with her curated boyish look and Noelle with her carefully feminine look that was slightly tempered by the nearly shaved head and prominent hipbones and the careful comportment, giving her the quality of one of those artist's mannequins. The arms and leges could be rearranged any way you liked, link by link, and this was what sex was too, when power was fluid. You could rearrange the other person, and the could rearrange you.

Does that scare you? Are you afraid that if I take away the mysterious part of you, I won't like you anymore?

It wasn't that Faith had become political in some sort of moment of epiphany; it was more that the world had moved and she had moved too.

But you can't say that what you learn in English class doesn't matter. That great writing doesn't make a difference. I'm

Why are we so hard on ourselves?" Asked someone with great plaintiveness. Faith thought, it's not that I'm so hard on myself exactly, it's that I've learned to adopt the views of men as if they were my own.

Being alone was something that Faith had perfected over the years. When you were alone you didn't have to worry about every little detail on your body, whether your legs were like prickly pears or whether after a cocktail party you were Brie-breathed. Unlike many people she knew, she often preferred her own company.

There were moments when you idly glanced into the toilet or into a tissue after you'd used it, and suddenly remembered that this, this was what you carried around inside you all the time. This was what was always waiting to be let out.

Anyone who ever gave a speech," said Faith, "was once someone who didn't. ...

If the twenty-first century taught you anything, it was that your words belonged to everyone, even if they actually didn't.

should come in for an interview?" she asked gently.

Now she felt as if she were dully humming with an unpleasant, low-grade drunkenness.

He almost thought of being a boyfriend as like being a duke or an earl; it was as if he had land to oversee now, and ribbons to cut.

The Ishtar of cartoons," wrote the Reporter. Every failure was the Ishtar of something

There are no grades anymore, Greer. Sometimes I think you forget that. There are never going to be grades for the rest of your life, so you just have to do what you want to do. Forget about how it looks. Think about what it is.

If the point of drawing was to bring your work into the world so that other people could see it and sense what you'd meant to convey, then, no, Gil should not keep giving it a whirl: he should never draw anything again. No whirls. It should be illegal for Gil Wolf to possess charcoal sticks. But if the point was something else, expression or release, or a way to give private meaning to the loss of your son, your child, your boy, then yes, he should draw and draw.

I'd looked and looked at him for so long; I'd made a habit of it, a vocation, and I could stop looking now.

The men she met all seemed to say they were "several years out of Wesleyan." Their beds were never made, or else made poorly, when she climbed into them. No one yet had the time or inclination to take care of themselves, and it was unclear when that would ever begin.

I was born like this. I came out of the womb saying, 'I'm worried that something's wrong with me. There's this weird growth between my legs!

This was an era in which sofa beds were frequently opened and unfolded; at this age people were still floating, not entirely landed, still needing places to stay the night sometimes. They were doing what they could, crashing in other places, living extemporaneously. Soon enough, the pace would pick up, the solid matter of life would kick in. Soon enough, sofa beds would stay folded.

Nor is it simply the small socialist gatherings Joe attends, though he hates to be a joiner, can't stand to be part of a group, even for a cause he believes in like this one, sitting earnest and cross-legged on someone's mildewed carpet and just listening, just taking information in, not offering anything of his own.

But she also saw that the Boyds were people whose love came with added sourness—and maybe, as a result, their son had developed the capacity for unspeakable sadness, and who could blame him? Dennis and Jules had both come from families that hadn't really felt good. This they'd shared, and when they'd come together it was to make a home that did feel good, and even sometimes to say: Fuck you, disappointing families.

We can't be afraid of change, or else we'll miss out on everything.

Siempre he tenido la sensación de que uno se pasa la vida como… preparándose para los grandes momentos, ¿sabes? Pero cuando llegan, a veces no te sientes nada preparado, o incluso resulta que no son como habías pensado. Y eso es lo que los hace extraños. La realidad es realmente distinta de la fantasía.

We are all here on this earth for only one go-round. And everyone thinks their purpose is just to find their passion. But perhaps our purpose is also to find out what other people need. And maybe the world does not actually need to see you, my dear, reciting a tired old monologue from the Samuel French collection or pretending to be drunk and staggering around. Has that ever occurred to you?