“Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in front of you.”
―
Emma Straub,
This Time Tomorrow
“Any story could be a comedy or a tragedy, depending on where you ended it. That was the magic. How the same story could be told an infinite number of ways.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“All her life, she'd thought of death as the single moment, the heart stopping, the final breath, but now she knew that it could be much more like giving birth, with nine months of preparations. Her father was heavily pregnant with death, and there was little to do but wait.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“The way you spend your days is the way you spend your life.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“Families were nothing more than hope cast out in a wide net, everyone wanting only the best.” ― Emma Straub, The Vacationers
“Happy endings were too much for some people, false and cheap, but hope - hope was honest. Hope was good.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“There was nothing in life harder or more important than agreeing every morning to stay the course, to go back to your forgotten self of so many years ago, and to make the same decision. Marriages, like ships, needed steering, and steady hands at the wheel.” ― Emma Straub, The Vacationers
“People said that everyone was born alone and everyone would die alone, but they were wrong. When someone was born, they brought so many people with them, generations of people zipped into the marrow of their tiny bones.” ― Emma Straub, All Adults Here
“Alice wondered if no one ever felt as old as they were because it happened so slowly, and you were only ever one day slower and creakier, and the world changed so gradually that by the time cars had evolved from boxy to smooth, or green taxis had joined yellow ones, or MetroCards had replaced tokens, you were used to it. Everyone was a lobster in the pot.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“People without children thought that having a newborn was the hardest part of parenthood, that upside down, the day is night twilight zone feedings and toothless wails. But parents knew better. Parents knew that the hardest part of parenthood was figuring out how to do the right thing in 24 hours a day, forever, and surviving all the times you failed.” ― Emma Straub, All Adults Here
“This was the job of a parent: to fuck up, over and over again. This was the job of a child: to grow up anyway.” ― Emma Straub, All Adults Here
“grief was something that moved in and stayed. Maybe it moved from one side of the room to the other, farther away from the window, but it was always there.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“It was embarrassing, if you slowed down long enough to think about it, how many major life decisions happened because they looked like the model you'd been given.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“When she was a teenager, the 1980s had felt far away, a lifetime ago, but now, when she was so many more decades ahead, 1996 still felt recent. The first twenty years of her life had gone by in slow motion--the endless summers, the space from birthday to birthday almost immeasurable--but the second twenty years had gone by in a flash. Days could still be slow, of course, but weeks and months and sometimes even years zipped along, like a rope slipping through your hands.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“Why was it so hard to see that, how close generations were? That children and their parents were companions through life.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“So much of becoming an adult was distancing yourself from your childhood experiences and pretending they didn’t matter, then growing to realize they were all that mattered and composed 90 percent of your entire being.” ― Emma Straub, All Adults Here
“Once Charles arrived, Franny would start laughing the way she had when she was twenty-four, and the rest of them could start setting one another on fire for all she cared. That’s what best friends did: ruin people for everyone else.” ― Emma Straub, The Vacationers
“Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in front of you. Transcendental meditation, maybe, but with hot dogs and the knowledge that everything would change, the good and the bad, and so you might as well appreciate the good.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“It was the worst fact of parenthood, that what you did mattered so much more than anything you said.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“Any story could be a comedy or a tragedy, depending on where you ended it. That was the magic. How the same story could be told an infinite number of ways.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“All her life, she'd thought of death as the single moment, the heart stopping, the final breath, but now she knew that it could be much more like giving birth, with nine months of preparations. Her father was heavily pregnant with death, and there was little to do but wait.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“The way you spend your days is the way you spend your life.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“Families were nothing more than hope cast out in a wide net, everyone wanting only the best.” ― Emma Straub, The Vacationers
“Happy endings were too much for some people, false and cheap, but hope - hope was honest. Hope was good.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“There was nothing in life harder or more important than agreeing every morning to stay the course, to go back to your forgotten self of so many years ago, and to make the same decision. Marriages, like ships, needed steering, and steady hands at the wheel.” ― Emma Straub, The Vacationers
“People said that everyone was born alone and everyone would die alone, but they were wrong. When someone was born, they brought so many people with them, generations of people zipped into the marrow of their tiny bones.” ― Emma Straub, All Adults Here
“Alice wondered if no one ever felt as old as they were because it happened so slowly, and you were only ever one day slower and creakier, and the world changed so gradually that by the time cars had evolved from boxy to smooth, or green taxis had joined yellow ones, or MetroCards had replaced tokens, you were used to it. Everyone was a lobster in the pot.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“People without children thought that having a newborn was the hardest part of parenthood, that upside down, the day is night twilight zone feedings and toothless wails. But parents knew better. Parents knew that the hardest part of parenthood was figuring out how to do the right thing in 24 hours a day, forever, and surviving all the times you failed.” ― Emma Straub, All Adults Here
“This was the job of a parent: to fuck up, over and over again. This was the job of a child: to grow up anyway.” ― Emma Straub, All Adults Here
“grief was something that moved in and stayed. Maybe it moved from one side of the room to the other, farther away from the window, but it was always there.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“It was embarrassing, if you slowed down long enough to think about it, how many major life decisions happened because they looked like the model you'd been given.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“When she was a teenager, the 1980s had felt far away, a lifetime ago, but now, when she was so many more decades ahead, 1996 still felt recent. The first twenty years of her life had gone by in slow motion--the endless summers, the space from birthday to birthday almost immeasurable--but the second twenty years had gone by in a flash. Days could still be slow, of course, but weeks and months and sometimes even years zipped along, like a rope slipping through your hands.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“Why was it so hard to see that, how close generations were? That children and their parents were companions through life.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“So much of becoming an adult was distancing yourself from your childhood experiences and pretending they didn’t matter, then growing to realize they were all that mattered and composed 90 percent of your entire being.” ― Emma Straub, All Adults Here
“Once Charles arrived, Franny would start laughing the way she had when she was twenty-four, and the rest of them could start setting one another on fire for all she cared. That’s what best friends did: ruin people for everyone else.” ― Emma Straub, The Vacationers
“Maybe that was the trick to life: to notice all the tiny moments in the day when everything else fell away and, for a split second, or maybe even a few seconds, you had no worries, only pleasure, only appreciation of what was right in front of you. Transcendental meditation, maybe, but with hot dogs and the knowledge that everything would change, the good and the bad, and so you might as well appreciate the good.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
“It was the worst fact of parenthood, that what you did mattered so much more than anything you said.” ― Emma Straub, This Time Tomorrow
