Quotes About Adaptation

Always have a backup plan to the backup plan.

It's so strange to think: A year ago today, I was undoing my husband. Now I am almost done reassembling him.

Writers (my kind of writers: aspiring novelists, ruminative thinkers, people whose brains don't work quick enough to blog or link or tweet, basically old, stubborn blowhards) were through. We were like women's hat makers or buggy-whip manufacturers: Our time was done.

They have no harsh edges with each other, no spiny conflicts, they ride through life like conjoined jellyfish - expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each other's spaces liquidly.

I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script.

So you swallow your disappointment and say okay.

I simply assumed I would bundle up my New York wife with her New York interests, her New York pride, and remove her from her New York parents—leave the frantic, thrilling futureland of Manhattan behind—and transplant her to a little town on the river in Missouri, and all would be fine.

There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn't ever complain.

The way some women change fashion regularly, I change personalities.

We had no clue that we were embarking on careers that would vanish within a decade.

Fake it, until you make it ..

My parents' cherished heirloom looks ridiculous in the new house. But then all our New York stuff does. Our dignified elephant of a chesterfield with its matching baby ottoman sits in the living room looking stunned, as if it got sleep-darted in its natural environment and woke up in this strange new captivity, surrounded by faux-posh carpet and synthetic wood and unveined walls. I do miss our old place –

they ride through life like conjoined jellyfish – expanding and contracting instinctively, filling each other's spaces liquidly.

The way some women change fashion regularly, I change personalities. What persona feels good, what's coveted, what's au courant? I think most people do this, they just don't admit it, or else they settle on one persona because they're too lazy or stupid to pull off a switch.

He'd have to work to make me comfortable here, and he doesn't want to do that. He wants to enjoy himself.

We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time.

De la misma manera que algunas mujeres cambian de aspecto regularmente, yo cambio de personalidad. ¿Qué personaje me sienta bien, cuál es el más deseado, cuál se pone de moda? Creo que la mayor parte de las personas hace lo mismo, simplemente no lo reconocen o en su defecto se afianzan en un solo personaje porque son demasiado perezosas o estúpidas para hacer el cambio.

waited patiently – years – for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we'd say, Yeah, he's a Cool Guy.

I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script.

I don't know that we are actually human at this point, those of us who are like most of us, who grew up with TV and movies and now the Internet. If we are betrayed, we know the words to say; when a loved one dies, we know the words to say. If we want to play the stud or the smart-ass or the fool, we know the words to say. We are all working from the same dog-eared script. It

One thing I've learned over the past thirty years is to not anticipate the future - life has a way of turning out quite differently than you've planned. Those who have a cool attitude to the world, an emotional remoteness from the twists and turns of fate, are lucky. Accepting life's unpredictability, I've observed, is the best antidote to despair.

Slumber not in the tents of your fathers. The world is advancing.

an iron law of warfare. No matter how clever you are at finding a new tool, your opponent will come up with a counter long before that can possibly be convenient for you.

Things will never stay the same. The only one sure thing is change. That's why there's always tomorrow.