—I’M JUST OUT HERE, SOLAMENTE, PRETTY WORLD SPINNING FASTER THAN IT SHOULD BE

 

THE DUTCH HOUSE     /     Ann Patchett

 

“It doesn’t have to be anyone’s fault. It’s bad timing, that’s all.”

 

“You always look like you’re leaving.”

 

There was no distance between them, no recrimination. They were living together in their own paradise of memory.

 

I was in love with him. I don’t think you can have another person look you straight in the eye for two weeks and not fall in love.

 

“I feel like we just went to the moon.”

 

--“Do houses ever die of grief?”

--“Only the decent ones,”

 

“You have to serve those who need to be served, not just the ones who make you feel good about yourself.”

 

I’d never been in the position of getting my head around what I’d been given. I only understood what I’d lost.

 

There was no such thing as jumping into a lake partway.

 

“The only real way to understand what money means is to have been poor.”

 

You can’t do something you haven’t started yet.

 

Maeve, speak up, don’t expect that anyone will do you the favor of listening if you don’t trouble yourself to use your voice.

 

Disappointment comes from expectation.

 

What I knew was that you only had to touch a hot stove once.

 

To list the things I didn’t ask my father about would be to list all of the stars in Heaven.

 

One of us was sleeping and I didn’t know which one it was.

 

There was nothing to do about that now but add it to the catalog of my mistakes.

 

Even the oldest angers could be displaced.

 

Habit is a funny thing. You might think you understand it, but you can never exactly see what it looks like when you’re doing it.

 

We made a fetish out of our misfortune, fallen in love with it.

 

Our childhood was a fire.

 

I said nothing to her because one should never initiate a conversation with Death.

 

“I’m so happy. I’ve just had a heart attack and this has been the best day of my life.”

 

But it was true: death was all I thought about in those days.

 

The poor, she discovered, were everywhere.

 

It’s like you don’t want to be dislodged from your suffering.

 

--“Then she’s secretly rich.”

--I shook my head. “She is flamboyantly poor.”

 

I understood what exactly there was to lose.

 

“For the record, I’m sick of misery.”

 

“I’m trying to understand what happened in our life. I’m trying to do the thing you’re always doing. I’m decoding the past.”