A lot of things in the house were broken or forgotten: the kitchen clock stopped, a closet doorknob coming off in my hand. The sparkly mess of flies I'd swept from the corners. It took sustained, constant living to ward off decay.

Emma Cline
About This Quote

The author of this quote is describing the process by which certain things are not used to their full potential. Instead, they are broken or forgotten. This is because people are constantly getting rid of things without putting them to good use. They don't use the things they have, and they don't use the things that are available to them.

Instead, they allow them to decay until they are no longer useful at all. When people refuse to use something that's still useful, it can break or it can be forgotten.

Source: The Girls

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More Quotes By Emma Cline
  1. She must have already forgiven him for leaving her behind. Girls were good at colouring in those disappointing blank spots. I thought of the night before, her exaggerated moans.
  2. A lot of things in the house were broken or forgotten: the kitchen clock stopped, a closet doorknob coming off in my hand. The sparkly mess of flies I'd swept from the corners. It took sustained, constant living to ward off decay.
  3. The man was bearing down on me. My hands were limp and wet. Please, I thought. Please. Who was I addressing? The man? God? Whoever handled these things.
  4. .. . even the surprise of harmless others in the house disturbed me. I didn't want my inner rot on display, even accidentally. Living alone was frightening in that way. No one to police the spill of yourself, the ways you betrayed your primitive desires....
  5. It pained me to imagine how our twosome appeared to others, marked as those kind of girls who belonged to each other. Those sexless fixtures of high school.
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