Цитаты из книги Сладкая горечь

Вы все до ужаса боитесь молодых. Мы напоминаем вам о том, каково это иметь идеалы, веру, свободу. Мы напоминаем вам обо всем, что вы потеряли, став взрослыми, циничными, отупелыми, пресыщенными, разбавив компромиссами жизнь, о которой мечтали. А я? Мне пока незачем идти на компромисс. Я не обязана делать решительно ничего, чего не хотела бы. Вот почему ты меня ненавидишь.

Жизнь – это то, что происходит, пока ты обслуживаешь и ждёшь.

It was Simone who used to say, on her better days, "Don't worry, little one, none of this will leave a scratch."

But I see the marks on people. Strangers who sit at the bar alone and order a drink with intimacy, order the chicken liver mousse and chat with the staff. People who pay attention to their plates in a way I want to call worshipful. I see them on myself: the scratches, scars. No, I didn't wait forever, but in that way we were all lifers.

I think it was Nicky who used to say, "Life is what happens when you're waiting." I don't know, it's a cliché at this point. That doesn't make it untrue.

You know what I dislike? When people use the future as a consolation for the present. I don't know if there is anything less helpful.

Our senses are never inaccurate, just our interpretations.

"Is it because you love her?"

"Of course I love her. But that's not a reason to hang a photograph."

"I think it's the reason to do a lot of things," I said carefully.

"I still like Dave Matthews Band," he said. "That's kind of embarrassing."

"No," I said. "Nothing you do is ever embarrassing. You're not a girl."

"Ari, everything can't be ironic all the time or it would lose its luster."

You think you're making choices. But you're not. Choices are being made against you.

"There are times in life when it's good to live without knowing," Howard said, interrupting what must have been a look of unruffled idiocy. "I mean that we can allow ourselves to live and not really know what it is that we're doing. That's all right. It's an accumulation stage."

What do you think happiness is? It's a mode of consumption. It's not a fixed state, somewhere you can take a cab to.

Not everyone gets the privilege of running away.

"Are you an orphan?"

"Ah." He smiled at me. "We are all orphans eventually. That's if we're lucky."

"There are so many things to be blasé about: your youth, your health, your employment. But real food — gifts from the ocean, no less — is not one of them. It's one of the only things that can immerse you safely in pleasure in this degraded, miserable place."

"It's quite eerie," she said, inspecting her face, pulling up her cheeks. "When you begin to see your mother in the mirror."

"I won't know," I said.

"No, you won't. You will always look like a stranger to yourself."

"I'm sick of that," I said. "Young, young, young, that's what I get, all day every day. But I know your secret." I lowered my voice and pushed myself toward him. "You're all terrified of young people. We remind you of what it was like to have ideals, faith, freedom. We remind you of the losses you've taken as you've grown cynical, numb, disenchanted, compromising the life you imagined. I don't have to compromise yet. I don't have to do a single thing I don't want to do. That's why you hate me."

"Why do you know so much?"

"I've been doing this a long time."

"No, everyone here has been doing this a long time. You know what I mean."

"I find it impossible to do anything without investing in it. Even server work."

"This job was supposed to be easy."

"All jobs are easy for people averse to using their brains. I'm in a slight but stately minority who believes that dining is an art, just like life."

"It's an epidemic with women your age. A gross disparity between the way that they speak and the quality of thoughts that they're having about the world. They are taught to express themselves in slang, in clichés, sarcasm — all of which is weak language. The superficiality of the language colors the experiences, rendering them disposable instead of assimilated. And then to top it all, you call yourselves 'girls.' "