“In a way, he supposed, it was inevitable for immigrants to become child versions of themselves, stripped of their verbal fluency and, with it, a layer of their competence and maturity.”
―
Angie Kim,
Miracle Creek
“But that was the way life worked. Every human being was the result of a million different factors mixing together -- one of a million sperm arriving at the egg at exactly a certain time; even a millisecond off, and another entirely different person would result. Good things and bad--every friendship and romance formed, every accident, every illness--resulted from the conspiracy of hundreds of little things, in and of themselves inconsequential.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“That was the thing about lies: they demanded commitment. Once you lied, you had to stick to your story.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“Good things and bad—every friendship and romance formed, every accident, every illness—resulted from the conspiracy of hundreds of little things, in and of themselves inconsequential.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“to Americans, verbiage was an inherent good, akin to kindness or courage. They loved words—the more, the longer, and more quickly said, the smarter and more impressive.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“We all have thoughts that shame us.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“He’d learned early on—fights in a marriage were like seesaws. You needed to balance blame carefully. You pile too much blame on one person, let them thunk down to the ground, they’re liable to stand and walk away, send you flying down on your ass.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“Tragedies don't inoculate you against further tragedies, and misfortune doesn't get sprinkled out in fair proportions; bad things get hurled at you in clumps and batches, unmanageable and messy.” ― Angie Kim
“Tragedies don’t inoculate you against further tragedies, and misfortune doesn’t get sprinkled out in fair proportions; bad things get hurled at you in clumps and batches, unmanageable and messy. How” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“Having a special-needs child didn’t just change you; it transmuted you, transported you to a parallel world with an altered gravitational axis.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“Our brains are hardwired to want resolution, to want the answer. The bigger and broader the mystery, the deeper the satisfaction when it’s resolved (a variation on Dad’s low baseline theory). They turn the pages and join the search party, to accelerate the process of solving the puzzle, of turning it into a different kind of story.” ― Angie Kim, Happiness Falls
“There's something, though, about the sounds that other people make. Not talking, necessarily. Just the sounds of living - creaking upstairs, humming a tune, watching TV, clanging the dishes - that blot away your loneliness. You miss them when they're gone. Their absence - the total silence - becomes palpable.” ― Angie Kim
“No one measured the number of hours spent holding your baby in the first year of life versus the remaining years, the dramatic dissipation of intimacy- the sensual familiarity of nursing, holding, comforting- as children pass from infancy and toodlerhood to the teens. You lived in the same house, but the intimacy was gone, replaced by aloofness, with splashes of annoyance. Like an addiction, you could go for years without it, but you never forgot it, never stopped missing it, and when you got a dab of it, like now, you craved it more and wanted to gorge on it.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“But that was the way life worked. Every human being was the result of a million different factors mixing together - one of a million sperm arriving at the egg at exactly a certain time; even a millisecond off, and another entirely different person would result. Good things and bad - every friendship and romance formed, every accident, every illness - resulted from the conspiracy of hundreds of little things, in and of themselves inconsequential.” ― Angie Kim
“But that begs the questions of 1) what is it about women as victims that makes these stories so popular? and, more importantly, at least from the standpoint of perpetuating the image of adult men as strong and powerful, 2) what is it about men as victims that makes these stories seemingly implausible and rare?” ― Angie Kim, Happiness Falls
“Good things and bad—every friendship and romance formed, every accident, every illness—resulted from the conspiracy of hundreds of little things, in and of themselves inconsequential” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“For the rest of our lives, every time one of us goes somewhere and doesn’t return on time, doesn’t let the others know where we are, we will remember this time, what can happen. And we will fall apart.” ― Angie Kim, Happiness Falls
“han": There was no English equivalent, no translation. It was an overwhelming sorrow and regret, a grief and yearning so deep it pervades your soul - but with a sprinkling of resilience, of hope.” ― Angie Kim
“It was exhausting and it took fifteen minutes. Fifteen for a pit stop that should take two! She knew she shouldn't whine; there were so many "bigger" things to deal with. But it was these everyday indignities, these small chunks of lost minutes, that got her the most, made her think how "normal" parents had no idea how good they had it. Oh, sure - moms of infants got a taste of this, but anything was bearable when it was temporary; try doing it day after day, knowing you'd do this until you died, that you'd be fricking squatting in a van peeing into a jar when you were eighty, driving around your fifty-year-old invalid daughter to God knows what therapies they'd have by then, worrying who'd take over when you died.” ― Angie Kim
“But that was the way life worked. Every human being was the result of a million different factors mixing together -- one of a million sperm arriving at the egg at exactly a certain time; even a millisecond off, and another entirely different person would result. Good things and bad--every friendship and romance formed, every accident, every illness--resulted from the conspiracy of hundreds of little things, in and of themselves inconsequential.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“That was the thing about lies: they demanded commitment. Once you lied, you had to stick to your story.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“Good things and bad—every friendship and romance formed, every accident, every illness—resulted from the conspiracy of hundreds of little things, in and of themselves inconsequential.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“to Americans, verbiage was an inherent good, akin to kindness or courage. They loved words—the more, the longer, and more quickly said, the smarter and more impressive.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“We all have thoughts that shame us.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“He’d learned early on—fights in a marriage were like seesaws. You needed to balance blame carefully. You pile too much blame on one person, let them thunk down to the ground, they’re liable to stand and walk away, send you flying down on your ass.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“Tragedies don't inoculate you against further tragedies, and misfortune doesn't get sprinkled out in fair proportions; bad things get hurled at you in clumps and batches, unmanageable and messy.” ― Angie Kim
“Tragedies don’t inoculate you against further tragedies, and misfortune doesn’t get sprinkled out in fair proportions; bad things get hurled at you in clumps and batches, unmanageable and messy. How” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“Having a special-needs child didn’t just change you; it transmuted you, transported you to a parallel world with an altered gravitational axis.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“Our brains are hardwired to want resolution, to want the answer. The bigger and broader the mystery, the deeper the satisfaction when it’s resolved (a variation on Dad’s low baseline theory). They turn the pages and join the search party, to accelerate the process of solving the puzzle, of turning it into a different kind of story.” ― Angie Kim, Happiness Falls
“There's something, though, about the sounds that other people make. Not talking, necessarily. Just the sounds of living - creaking upstairs, humming a tune, watching TV, clanging the dishes - that blot away your loneliness. You miss them when they're gone. Their absence - the total silence - becomes palpable.” ― Angie Kim
“No one measured the number of hours spent holding your baby in the first year of life versus the remaining years, the dramatic dissipation of intimacy- the sensual familiarity of nursing, holding, comforting- as children pass from infancy and toodlerhood to the teens. You lived in the same house, but the intimacy was gone, replaced by aloofness, with splashes of annoyance. Like an addiction, you could go for years without it, but you never forgot it, never stopped missing it, and when you got a dab of it, like now, you craved it more and wanted to gorge on it.” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“But that was the way life worked. Every human being was the result of a million different factors mixing together - one of a million sperm arriving at the egg at exactly a certain time; even a millisecond off, and another entirely different person would result. Good things and bad - every friendship and romance formed, every accident, every illness - resulted from the conspiracy of hundreds of little things, in and of themselves inconsequential.” ― Angie Kim
“But that begs the questions of 1) what is it about women as victims that makes these stories so popular? and, more importantly, at least from the standpoint of perpetuating the image of adult men as strong and powerful, 2) what is it about men as victims that makes these stories seemingly implausible and rare?” ― Angie Kim, Happiness Falls
“Good things and bad—every friendship and romance formed, every accident, every illness—resulted from the conspiracy of hundreds of little things, in and of themselves inconsequential” ― Angie Kim, Miracle Creek
“For the rest of our lives, every time one of us goes somewhere and doesn’t return on time, doesn’t let the others know where we are, we will remember this time, what can happen. And we will fall apart.” ― Angie Kim, Happiness Falls
“han": There was no English equivalent, no translation. It was an overwhelming sorrow and regret, a grief and yearning so deep it pervades your soul - but with a sprinkling of resilience, of hope.” ― Angie Kim
“It was exhausting and it took fifteen minutes. Fifteen for a pit stop that should take two! She knew she shouldn't whine; there were so many "bigger" things to deal with. But it was these everyday indignities, these small chunks of lost minutes, that got her the most, made her think how "normal" parents had no idea how good they had it. Oh, sure - moms of infants got a taste of this, but anything was bearable when it was temporary; try doing it day after day, knowing you'd do this until you died, that you'd be fricking squatting in a van peeing into a jar when you were eighty, driving around your fifty-year-old invalid daughter to God knows what therapies they'd have by then, worrying who'd take over when you died.” ― Angie Kim
