“ Dad said certain people's sanity, in order to maintain a healthy equilibrium, required getting messy once in a while, what he called going Chekhovian: some people, every now and then, simply had to ha… Marisha Pessl
“ But now that you mention it, will you promise to off me when I'm ninety and never leave home without an oxygen tank? Make a day of it. Just roll me and my wheelchair off the George Washington Bridge a… Marisha Pessl
“ Because every one of us has our box, a dark chamber stowing the thing that lanced our heart. It contains what you do everything for, for, everything around you. Marisha Pessl
“ All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way, and when it comes to the Holiday Season, happy families can abruptly become unhappy and unhappy families can… Marisha Pessl
“ They're weak, petty, so apathetic about this gift of life as if it were all a mere Pepsi commercial. Marisha Pessl
“ Somewhere, nearby voices filled with dusk, cabs and panhandlers and one drunken girl screeching like a wounded bird - all of it flushed with a warmth and sad beauty I'd never noticed before. Marisha Pessl
“ —even in hardened criminals, they were just air pockets lodged under debris at the bottom of an ocean. It might take an earthquake, or you scuba diving down there, sifting through the sludge, but thei… Marisha Pessl
“ That was how it went sometimes, the English language, when you really needed it, crumbled to clay in your mouth. That’s when all the real things were said. Marisha Pessl
“ Vast fortunes did that to people. It took them to the cleaners, cruelly starched and steam-pressed them so all their raw edges, all the dirt and hunger and guileless laughter, were ironed out. Few sur… Marisha Pessl
“ Those were the best nights of my life. I couldn’t say why, exactly, this was so—only that I knew that as an old woman, when I thought back to my youth, I’d remember these nights, sitting with these fi… Marisha Pessl
“ They were always reminding themselves to stop measuring life in coffee spoons, mornings and afternoons, to keep swimming way, way down to the bottom of the ocean to find where the mermaids sang. Marisha Pessl
“ Sometimes people surprise the hell outta you. Sometimes they can tear your heart out and turn it to putty, can’t they? Marisha Pessl
“ Some people are as fragile as butterflies and sensitive and it’s your responsibility not to destroy them. Just because you can Marisha Pessl
“ Smoke was a person with a sense of history. Do you know what I mean? ...in truth, I DID know what she meant. Da Vinci, Martin Luther King, Jr., Genghis Kahn, Abraham Lincoln, Bette Davis - if you read… Marisha Pessl
“ Never try to change the narrative structure of someone else's story, though you will certainly be tempted to, as you watch those poor souls in school, in life, heading unwittingly down dangerous tange… Marisha Pessl
“ Millions of people walked through their lives numb, dying to feel something, to feel alive. To be chosen by Cordova for a film was an opportunity for just that, not simply for fame and fortune, but to… Marisha Pessl
“ Look at Picasso. O’Neill. Tennessee Williams. Capote. Were these shiny happy people spreading sunshine? No. Only the greatest of personal demons can force you to do powerful work. Marisha Pessl
“ Life had been a suit I'd only put on for special occasions. Most of the time I kept it in the back of my closet, forgetting it was there. We were meant to die when it was barely stitched anymore, when… Marisha Pessl
