Quotes About Expectations

But I ain't young enough to count on what I think bein' right, either, an' I ain't fool enough to figure on things turning out the way I expect 'em to.

When his second wife died and he was free to propose, he did one day, on a picnic to the place they called her orchard, and she refused instantly, without losing a trace of merriment. Why not? he asked. I'm used to my own ways, she said. You might try to make me do something I wouldn't want to do. Don't I indulge your every whim? he asked. Yes, but that's because you haven't got me, Clara said. I bet you'd change fast if I ever let you get the upper hand. p340

the notion that having a job or an income of any kind should be happiness enough has become outdated.

This wasn't because he liked me, I was sure. It had more to do with him banking on what we of wedding age had all become witnesses to—how during these wedding weekends, single women, feeling a little lonely, maybe, or just feeling a little too far from being the bride, found themselves loosening their own rules, opting to be more flexible, more quickly.

Gwyn looks up at her daughter, makes her meet her eyes. "What I think is that there is no good way or bad way. And the sooner we let go of expectations about how things are supposed to go, the happier we get to be.

And I think my husband knows who he married,' I say. Grady laughs. 'I would think if this taught you anything, it's that no one knows who they marry,' he says.

I thought if I were nice enough, sweet enough, she'd understand she could count on me. But that's not how you learn you can count on someone. You learn it in the moments when everyone's too tired to be sweet, too tired to try hard.

parecía que la única virtud de Mamá Elena era la de encontrar defectos.

Maldita decencia! ¡Maldito manual de Carreño! Por su culpa su cuerpo quedaba destinado a marchitarse poco a poco, sin remedio alguno. ¡Y maldito Pedro tan decente, tan correcto, tan varonil, tan... tan amado! -Tita

Mothers always fuss about the way you eat. You can hardly eat any way that pleases them.

Beyond the personal discomfort, her larger point was that women aren't going to achieve social equality until some technological alternative is invented to save us from being the only sex expected to go through it. If men were the ones forced to endure this ordeal, obviously such a technological solution would long ago have been devised.

Just how much renunciation of desire does society demand of us versus the degree of gratification it provides?

I wanted you to choose this. To choose me. But it isn't always possible for two people to want the same thing. I want you, and that will have to be enough for both of us.

To be a wife was to cook. Not to eat—that was a different matter entirely—but to cook.

will never be called upon to enact: the mainstream is

He had this old southern idea of what a lady should be. A lady should not carry a gun and spend most of her time covered in blood and corpses. I had two words for that attitude. Yeah, those are the words.

Questions are great, but only if you know the answers. If you ask questions and the answers surprise you, you look silly.

Everyone wants to grow up to be a faerie princess. Trust me, It's overrated

Most women complain that there are no single, straight men left. I'd just like to meet one who's human.

I remembered twenty. I'd known everything at twenty. It took me another year to realize I knew nothing. I was still hoping to learn something before I hit thirty, but I wasn't holding my breath.

When I was younger, I'd wanted someone to promise me that things would work out and nothing bad would ever happen again. But I understood now that that was a child's wish. No one could promise that. No one. The grown-ups could try, but they couldn't promise, not and mean it.

he'd wanted to do for years while we dated—the whole princely sweep-you-off-your-feet shit. I liked to keep my feet firmly on the ground unless sex was involved, and you can't really have sex in a horse-drawn carriage; it scares the horses.

I'm sorry I have issues with my boyfriend doing other men. I'm sorry I have issues with me doing other men. Why was I always being made to feel guilty because I wasn't having sex with more people? Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around?

Some women feel loved if you do the dishes without being reminded; some men feel loved if you'll play a video game with them, others if you buy them a collar and a nice leash and occasionally lead them around by it.