Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney Quotes

#1. Leo was the only one who had never petitioned Francie for a loan using The Nest as collateral. Jack and Melody and Bea had all asked at one time that she consider an earlier dispersal, but she stubbornly refused.Until Leo's accident.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#2. This was the part she hated, the part of a relationship that always nudged her to bail, the part where someone else's misery or expectations or neediness crept into her carefully prescribed world. It was such a burden, other people's lives.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#3. she understood he was lonely and that their ritual comforted him, connected the noises of her life with the silence of his

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#4. Being somebody's looking glass is not your job.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#5. It's not your job to be anyone's mirror.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#6. If you want to predict a person's behavior, identify his or her incentives. Leo

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#7. True patriotism, Jack believed, would have been for his fellow Americans to look inward after 9/11 and accept a little blame, admit the attacks had happened, in part, because of who they were in the world, not in spite of it.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#8. She was open to love, but she was best at managing her own happiness; it was other people's happiness that sunk her.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#9. was probably mad at all of them. She wondered

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#10. behind her out in their yard screeching and laughing. Their dad was yelling: "Don't eat the

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#11. I you want people to judge you based on the inside, don't distract them from the outside.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#12. They'd fallen into their old ways, accusatory and evasive, which was reassuring in a perverted way. Leo understood the nasty pull of the regrettable familiar, how the old grooves could be so much more satisfying than the looming unknown. It's addicts stayed addicts.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#13. The cars on the block were already hidden under a sodden layer of white. People were shoveling their walks and

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#14. Accommodation. A different and sturdier kind of nest. AS

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#15. Right now, it felt like there was nowhere for his thoughts to alight that wasn't rife with land mines of regret or anger or guilt.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#16. I used to read three newspapers every morning. Three.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#17. People might not change but their incentives could.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#18. She believed in second chances, sometimes more than first chances, which were wasted on youth and indiscretion.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#19. She supposed she could Google, but she preferred to wonder.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#20. Neither of them even had time to scream.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#21. abundance proffered too soon led to lassitude and indolence, a wandering dissatisfaction.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#22. I hate wearing flats," she said, tugging her fitted white blouse a little lower. "They make me feel flat all over.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#23. Parents are temporary custodians, keeping watch and offering love and trying to leave the child better than they found him.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#24. She was so much better at being alone; being alone came more naturally to her. She led a life of deliberate solitude, and if occasional loneliness crept in, she knew how to work her way out of that particular divot. Or even better, how to sink in and absorb its particular comforts.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#25. I'm curious," he said, "is telling someone to relax ever helpful? It's like saying 'breathe' to someone who is hyperventilating or 'swallow' to a person who's choking. It's a completely useless admonition." "I

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#26. Jack picked a piece of mint from his glass and chewed on it for a second. "I'm curious," he said,
"is telling someone to relax ever helpful? It's like saying 'breathe' to someone who is
hyperventilating or 'swallow' to a person who's choking. It's a completely useless admonition.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#27. He missed Stephanie, the ease between them, her solid and comforting presence. Sitting across from him, in the light of the fire, she blazed with health and well-being and good humor. "I

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#28. People abandoned one another constantly without performing the courtesy of of actually disappearing. They left, but didn't, lurking about, a constant reminder of what could or should have been.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#29. His love for her was quiet and constant, familiar and soothing; it was almost its own thing entirely, like a worn rock or a set of worry beads, something he'd pick up and weigh in his palm occasionally, more comforting than dispiriting.

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney

#30. a long, boozy evening when her ebullience was so uncorrupted that she could shift a room's atmosphere

Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney