Quotes from Suzanne Finnamore

It's adult swim time and I'm diving in here at the shallow end.

Such silence has an actual sound, the sound of disappearance.

I remember one desolate Sunday night, wondering: Is this how I´m going to spend the rest of my life? Marrid to someone who is perpetually distracted and somewhat wistful, as though a marvelous party is going on in the next room, which but for me he could be attending?

I was steeped in denial, but my body knew.

I used to loathe ambivalence; now I adore it. Ambivalence is my new best friend.

You are the closest I will ever come to magic.

Delusion detests focus and romance provides the veil.

I've felt basically lucky ever since, almost every day of my life. That's something else love should make you feel. It should make you fell fortunate. It will be made clear to you in a stray gesture, the line of a throat. Something in the hands. There may or may not be any music playing. But there will be a certain velocity of the spirit, a sensation of dropping through clear space unimpeded, and you think, This is the one. I found you.

A heart can stop beating for a while, one can still live.

Any way I slice reality it comes out poorly, and I feel an urge to not exist, something I have never felt before; and now here it comes with conviction, almost panic. I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.

I know one thing about men, Bunny says with finality, leaving the room to check on A. They never die when you want them to.

He left a bit too easily and with obvious relief. His feet were swift and sure on the muddy path.

So many events and moments that seemed insignificant add up. I remember how for the last Valentine´s Day, N gave flowers but no card. In restaurants, he looked off into the middle distance while my hand would creep across the table to hold his. He would always let go first. I realize I can´t remember his last spontaneous gesture of affection.

They feel life is for the taking, and that everyone deserves happiness no matter what the cost. I must remember these tricks if I ever decide to have my soul surgically removed.

Already things are changing; it´s starting with small shit but oh it´s starting, the change, the irrevocable, impossible change.

The snag about marriage is, it isn´t worth the divorce.

Someday I will have revenge. I know in advance to keep this to myself, and everyone will be happier. I do understand that I am expected to forgive N and his girlfriend in a timely fashion, and move on to a life of vegetarian cooking and difficult yoga positions and self-realization, and make this so much easier and more pleasant for all concerned.

Surprises, I feel now, are primarily a form of violence.

I have a new mantra, which I chant softly to myself: Oh My God Oh My God.

Soon he was online every night until one or two a.m. Often he would wake up at three of four a.m. and go back online. He would shut down the computer screen when I walked in. In the past, he used to take the laptop to bed with him and we would both be on our laptops, hips touching. He stopped doing that, slipping off to his office instead and closing the door even when A was asleep. He started closing doors behind him. I was steeped in denial, but my body knew.

I am going insane. Yes. That is what´s happening. Good. Insane.

I love you as the mother of my child: the kiss of death. Mother of His Child: demotion. I am beginning to see this truism: Mothers are not always wives. I have been stripped of a piece of self.

It´s like watching someone do a triple backflip dismount and land on two feet, solid, arms splayed in the air. I know I could never do it, don´t even know where I would begin to learn, but some people are built for it. He was handcrafted to leave, had practiced on other women since adolescence. I was one of an unnumbered series.

I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.