Quotes from Jenny Offill

Fuck this bourgeois shit, baby! Let's be pure of heart again!

Sri Ramakrishna said, Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond.

But the smell of her hair. The way she clasped her hand around my fingers. This was like medicine. For once, I didn't have to think. The animal was ascendant.

would give it up for her, everything, the hours alone, the radiant book, the postage stamp in my likeness, but only if she would consent to lie quietly with me until she is eighteen. If she would lie quietly with me, if I could bury my face in her hair, yes, then yes, uncle.

All my life now appears to be one happy moment. This is what the first man in space said.

Objects create happiness. The animals are pleased to be of use. Your cities will shine forever. Death will not touch you.

Sometimes I find myself having little conversations in my head with the punk rock kids upstairs.

The reason to have a home is to keep certain people in and everyone else out. A home has a perimeter.

How has she become one of those people who wears yoga pants all day? She used to make fun of those people. With their happiness maps and their gratitude journals and their bags made out of recycled tire treads. But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.

Women of reproductive age are being urged to get IUDs. They can last six to twelve years and so might outlast the shuttering of the clinics. But it's suddenly hard to get in to see a doctor; the appointments are all booked for months and the waiting rooms at the walk-in clinics are full of nervous white women.

If only they were French, the wife thinks. This would all feel different

At his old school, they taught him a song to remember all its phases. Sometimes he'll sing it for us at dinner, but only if we do not request it.

Sometimes on the subway platform I still sway, imagining her in my arms.

Nothing is better for man than a good wife, and no horror matches a bad one.

The core delusion is that I am here and you are there.

Why couldn't the Buddhist vacuum in corners? A. Because she had no attachments.

There is a heroic tower of folded things on the table. I spot my favorite shirt, my least depressing underwear. I go into the bedroom and change into them. Now I am a brand-new person.

A visitor asked the old monks at Mount Athos what they did all day and was told: We have died and we are in love with everything.

Ben se ha quedado despierto hasta muy tarde afilando los lápices que ha encontrado debajo del sofá. Ha guardado los más bonitos para mí. Me gusta llevarlos en la mochila. Sobre todo, este lápiz rojo que creía que ya no iba a volver.

This morning Margot talked about the difference between falling and floating. With practice, she says, one may learn to accept the feeling of groundlessness without existential fear. This is akin to the way an experienced parachutist or astronaut might enjoy the wide view from above even as he hurtles through space. She gave us a formula: suffering = pain + resistance.

Darwin theorized that there was something left over after sexual attractiveness had served its purpose and compelled us to mate. This he called 'beauty' and thought it might be what drives the human animal to make art.

Can I ask you something?' Will says and I say 'Sure, ask me something.' 'How do you know all this?' 'I'm a fucking librarian

Environmentalists are so dreary.

There is a tradition in Judaism that happiness and sorrow must be intermingled. On Passover, you are instructed to remove drops of wine before drinking it to lessen your pleasure. Each drop removed represents a tragedy that befell those who went before you. It's the same at weddings. The couple breaks a glass by stepping on it together. This is so they will remember past sorrows in the midst of their present joy.