1
And in the middle of the lake the woman I'd spoken with floated on her back, eyes closed, as if nothing in her many years had ever gone wrong.Anthony Marra
2
The past few months have been the most serene of his adult life. The megalopolis in his mind has quieted to a country road. He does his work, he eats his bread, and he sleeps with the knowledge that today hasn't added to the sum of human misery. For now at least it's peace of a kind he hadn't imagined himself worthy of receiving.Anthony Marra
3
The future is the lie with which we justify the brutality of the present.Anthony Marra
4
Wealth announces itself with what's easy to break and impossible to clean. The chairs were all curvy works of art that turned sitting into yoga exercises.Anthony Marra
5
Never forget the first three letters of confidence.Anthony Marra
6
The stomach is not the only vital organ that hungers.Anthony Marra
7
Endurance, I reminded myself, is the true measure of existence.Anthony Marra
8
There's nothing quite like the sight of two dozen half-naked octogenarians. We enter the stage of life as dolls and exit as gargoyles.Anthony Marra
9
The calcium in collarbones I have kissed. The iron in the blood flushing those cheeks. We imprint our intimacies upon atoms born from an explosion so great it still marks the emptiness of space. A shimmer of photons bears the memory across the long dark amnesia. We will be carried too, mysterious particles that we are.Anthony Marra
10
In order to become the chisel that breaks the marble inside us, the artist must first become the hammer." [Soviet censor of paintings and photos]Anthony Marra
11
There are so many paths to contentment if you're open to self-delusion.Anthony Marra
12
No one likes a braggart, and to praise your children is to curse them with misfortune, but we admit it, if only in secret, if only to ourselves: We are proud, we are so proud of them. We've given them all we can, but our greatest gift has been to imprint upon them our own ordinariness. They may begrudge us, may think us unambitious and narrow-minded, but someday they will realize that what makes them unremarkable is what kept them alive.Anthony Marra
13
A single whisper can be quite a disturbance when the rest of the audience is silent.Anthony Marra