Great Big Beautiful Life

“Sometimes I just miss this. Being close to someone. Being touched. Not just sex, I mean.”

“For the one you love? Anything. You unmake the world and build a new one. You do anything to give them what they need.”

“Every bad thing that every perfect stranger said about him mattered. Because he wasn’t used to discounting it. He was used to people’s opinions of him having been formed by…well, him. His actions and intentions, their personal experience with him.”

“But this is who I am, and even if you don’t understand it, couldn’t you just pretend for a few days a year that you respect me? That you like me? Because I can’t figure out how to be anyone else, and it’s lonely, it’s so fucking lonely being the person who doesn’t belong in this family.”

“I understood what really mattered. I understood my priorities. I understood what, in this life, was nonnegotiable for me. A lot of people don’t find that out until it’s too late. They wait to say things, and they don’t get the chance. So collecting other people’s stories, learning from their mistakes, it is a gift too. You are who you are right now in part because of what you did for Len and his family. You can’t control any of that other stuff you worry about, but you can control what you do.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but you sound like a robot learning to love.”

“It feels like you’ve lived their whole life with them. And I just can’t help but think, we’re not supposed to know how it all ends, this early. It’s too much of a burden.”

“Don’t try to talk me out of it, Alice. Every time we try to protect each other, all it does is cost us more time together, and I’m not willing to lose any more. I want to be with you. Nothing else is going to matter to me more than that. Not at the end of my life. Not even now. Nothing will matter more than who I spent my time with, and I want it to be you. I need it to be you.”

“I am who I am. I like the things I like. I’m good at the things I’m good at. And my mom—she’s her. Telling her that it hurts my feelings that she’s not interested in my work won’t change how she actually feels. She’ll just act different. And I don’t need that. I don’t want her to pretend to think what I do has value. That would feel so much worse to me.”

“Well, if you’d like, I can get you my mom’s phone number and the two of you can compare notes about all the more impressive jobs I could’ve had, and then I can reach out to your dad and let him know I agree you should’ve played basketball in high school.”

“It wasn’t enough for you to kiss me—and let’s be clear here, you kissed me—shut me down, and insult my ability. You had to show up here tonight, to what? Ruin my date? Or—did you not even believe I had a date? Well, guess what! You win! I don’t! He’s not coming after all! He, like you, changed his mind at the last second. I guess I have that effect on a certain kind of man. So if you’re done chasing me down the street to get a good look at my humiliation, I’d love to go home right now and pretend this night—this whole last week—never happened.”

“Inappropriate? I didn’t think so. Curious? Exceptionally, seeing as how my husband had to have passed away at least thirty years before you were even born.”

“She lies to me too. For whatever it’s worth, Margaret Ives isn’t telling me the truth.”

“I think she loves me because I’m her daughter. But I’ve never felt sure she loves me because I’m me. Does that make sense?”

“Don’t say that. I want you in my business. I’m inviting you into my business.”

“I’ve always felt most myself when I’m alone.”

“Sad for Peggy. That was my favorite song on the album. ‘Peggy All the Time.’ And I don’t know, I just knew it had to be true. That you couldn’t write a love song like that if you hadn’t found a once-in-a-lifetime love. And I didn’t want her to have lost the person who gave her that.”

“It’s just that somehow, almost everything you say makes me want to kiss you.”