Quotes from Gabrielle Zevin

Yo odio los libros de coleccionista. Toda esa gente que se vuelve loca por armazones de papel. Lo importante son las ideas, amigo. Las palabras.

If you're stuck, reading helps: "The Beauties" by Anton Chekhov, "The Doll's House" by Katherine Mansfield, "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J. D. Salinger, "Brownies" or "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere" both by ZZ Packer, "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel, "Fat" by Raymond Carver, "Indian Camp" by Ernest Hemingway.

Žinau, k? daro žodžiai. Žodžiai išlaisvina jaumus.

Jeanne, who belonged to a book club where no one ever finished the book. Jeanne, whose primary workout was swimming.

I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages.

Every word the right one and exactly where it should be. That's basically the highest compliment I can give.

Maybe I could paint flats or print programs or something?" She wants to say How unlike you, but she resists. Aside from her husband, she believes her brother-in-law to be one of the most selfish and self-centered men she has ever met. If one afternoon with a baby can have such a refining influence on A.J., imagine what could happen to Daniel when the baby is born.

The wallpaper has a bumpy, swirling pattern, and it is pleasing to rub her face against it. She will read the word damask in a book one day and think, Yes, of course that's what it's called. In contrast, the word wainscoting will come as a huge disappointment.

My books can be divided into dog eras. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was begun in the era of Edie and Frank and completed in the era of Leia and Frank. Good dogs, all.

A man puts on a suit and a tie and an American flag pin, and that's the end of the story. He is a politician. A female politician's appearance is always a disputed territory, a matter of discussion.

He is thinking about his brain. It strikes him that it is odd to have to use the thing that may not be working to consider the thing that isn't working.

Es preciso encontrar las historias en el momento adecuado de nuestra vida. Recuerda: las cosas que nos emocionan a los veinte no tienen por qué ser las mismas que nos emocionarán a los cuarenta, y viceversa. Esto es así por lo que respecta a los libros y también a la vida.

knows why she was here or who she came to see or why she decided to kill herself by swimming into the icy waters of the Alice Island Sound in December. That is to say, no one knows the specific reason. They know that Marian Wallace is black, that she is twenty-two years old, and that she had a twenty-five-month-old toddler.

It's like Oz and Kansas, if Dorothy could switch between them the whole time.

She savored the quiet time alone at the podium. Alone, but with people. She looked into the audience, a sea of soft, shapeless neutrals, and she wondered how many of those women loved their husbands as much as she loved Aaron.

He would know her handwriting anywhere.

When your mother is worrying about something, it means that you won't have to.

Asiente por cortesía pero no cree en los actos fortuitos. Como aficionado a la lectura, cree en la estructura. Si aparece una pistola en el capítulo uno, más vale que se dispare en el capítulo tres. Es decir, cree en la narrativa.

Lambiase thinks he hears the little girl call A.J. "Daddy." "Ugh, I keep telling her not to call me that," A.J. says. "But she won't listen.

I love you, Sadie," Sam said. "I know, Sam. I love you, too.

Fucking love, he thinks. What a bother. It's completely gotten in the way of his plan to drink himself to death, to drive his business to ruin. The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything.

As a warm-up, Lambiase sets up A.J. with his cousin. The cousin has blond hair with black roots, overly plucked eyebrows, a heart-shaped face, and a high-pitched voice like Michael Jackson. She wears a low-cut top and a push-up bra, which creates a small, sad shelf for her name necklace to rest. Her name is Maria. In the middle of mozzarella sticks, they run out of conversation.

The other interns have left, and your eyes are beginning to spill over. The hell with it, you think. No one's here. It's better that you cry before you drive. Miami's confusing to navigate at night, and they haven't invented Google Maps yet.

What if there is only an equal ratio of happiness to unhappiness in the world at any given time?