“Frances had struggled to explain that strangers were by definition interesting. It was their strangeness. The not-knowing. Once you knew everything there was to know about someone, you were generally ready to divorce them.”
″‘Make sure it doesn’t change us,’ he slurred, just before they fell asleep that night, and Jessica thought, ‘What are you talking about? It’s already changed us!‘”
“She looked at her nine guests, all of whom now had their eyes obediently closed as they awaited her instructions. Their destinies were in her hands. She was going to change them not just temporarily, but forever.”
“As she swam, she silently chanted in time with her strokes: ‘I’m so happy, I’m so happy, I’m so happy, breathe, I’m so happy, I’m so happy, I’m so happy, breathe.‘”
“There was nothing worse than having to feel sorry for people who had wronged you. You don’t want lottery wins for your enemies, but you don’t want tragedies for them either.”
“Once you’ve hit a ball there’s no point watching to see where it’s going. You can’t change its flight path now. You have to think about your next move. Not what you should have done. What you do now.”
“You know that theory: if you put a frog in water and keep slowly turning up the heat, it doesn’t jump out because it doesn’t realize it’s slowly being boiled to death.”
″‘Regret’ can be my memoir’s theme, she thought, as she tried to shove the cheese grater into the dishwasher next to the frying pan. A Regretful Life, by Joy Delaney.”