Quotes from Marisha Pessl

It was always surprising to me how ferociously the public mourned a beautiful stranger -- especially one from a famous family. Into that empty form they could unload the grief and regret of their own lives, be rid of it, feel lucky and light for a few days, comforted by the though, At least it wasn't me.

It's a terrible thing, to lie. It's a field you keep seeding and watering and plowing, but nothing will ever grow on it." She

Mr. Archer being EARTH FRIENDLY was APPARATUS HOSTILE.

I'd have to, if on Sunday I wanted to run off with some slack-jawed Suzy, some invertebrate, a post-pubescent wasteoid who imagines the Khmer Rouge to be makeup and Guerrilla Warfare to be that rivalry which occurs between apes.

I'd actually questioned my sanity, wondered if this was it: the substandard past few years had finally led to a mental break with reality, and now, floodgates open, there'd be no limit to the fiends I'd encounter. They'd simply crawl out of my head, down into the world.

It was never the act itself but our own understanding of it that defeated us, over and over again.

A man so far out of his league he suffered from altitude sickness.

Fuck you, she said, giggling. And your little dog too.

Dad's "Theory of Arrogance"—that everyone always assumes they're the Principal Character of Desire and/or Loathing in everybody else's Broadway play.

America's greatest revelation was not the atom bomb, not Fundamentalism, not fat farms, not Elvis, not even the quite astute observation that gentlemen prefer blondes, but the great heights to which she has propelled ice cream, Dad was fond of commenting while standing with the freezer door open and inspecting every flavor of Ben and Jerry's, oblivious to the customers swarming around him, waiting for him to move.

Que sont les fantasmes ? Des rêves dont nous nous servons pour nous préserver de la réalité. Notre monde est un plancher rigide qui nous casse le dos si on dort à même le sol.

It was astounding how a woman, when she struck marital gold, procured not just a new wardrobe and new friends but a new voice straight out of a 1930s gramophone (brittle, mono-stereo) and a vocabulary that reliably included laze, season, and terribly sorry.

You know what Confucius said?" "Remind me." " Ã¢â'¬ËœBefore you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.' 

Carnations) The only flower that, when given to someone, is marginally superior to dead ones.

It was the cause of many of Dad's outrages too, when people elected themselves his personal oracle of Delphi... They'd made the mistake of abridging Dad, putting Dad in a nutshell, telling Dad How It Was (and getting it all wrong). ... The act of being personally misconstrued, Dad said, informed to one's face one is no more complex than a few words haphazardly strung together like blotchy undershirts on a clothesline-- well, it can fall the most self-possessed of individuals.

Take as much care with words expressing your sentiments as you will crafting your doctoral dissertation.

Why would I waste time—a highly precious, constantly diminishing resource—on transitory neurological fluctuations of adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin?

We were freshman, taking her film class, and we'd spend hours after school sitting in her classroom talking about any old thing—life, sex, Forrest Gump.

I didn't want to waste another minute on it. My life was meant to begin. The bad things that happen to you don't have to mean anything at all.

You're mistaking love for perfection, I said. Real love when it's there? It's just there . It's a metal folding chair.

The bad things that happen to you don't have to mean anything at all. -Nora Halliday

The store was empty, without a single customer or employee. It appeared in the Internet age, pianos, like physical books, were fast becoming culturally extinct. They'd probably stay that way unless Apple invented the iPiano, which fit inside your pocket and could be mastered via text message. With the iPiano, anyone can be an iMozart. Then, you could compose your own iRequiem for your own iFuneral attended by millions of your iFriends who iLoved you.

WELCOME TO THE BLACKBOARDS This is the Cordovites' premier wormhole, where time ticks backward, trees grow down, light eats itself, fear is an opening, and life is Sovereign, Deadly, Perfect.

Some people don't want to be sober. They don't want reality. After life trips them, they choose to stay facedown in the mud.