Emma Straub

“Why bother getting married, going through all the pomp and pageantry, if you didn't think it was going to last? It was far easier to live in sin and not have to deal with the paperwork.”

“Maybe that was the answer to good parenting—pretending the first child was the second.”

“So much for being a good friend was knowing when to keep your mouth shut.”

“She had the wild look of someone who hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, with purplish semicircles underneath both her eyes. Being eighteen was like being made out of rubber and cocaine.”

“It was so long ago now that the job felt like part of her soul. Like being a teacher or an artist who made things out of sand. You never really saw the results. You just trusted that you knew what you were doing and that everything would work out okay in the end.”

“There was nothing about youth that was fair: the young hadn't done anything to deserve it, and the old hadn't done anything to drive it away.”

“Some people smoked crack in alleyways. Franny ate chocolate. On the scale of things, it seemed entirely reasonable.”