“ I think having the knowledge, plus the experiences you've lived through, make you definitely not fragile. They make you brave. Meg Wolitzer
“ People are always saying these things about how there's no need to read literature anymore-that it won't help the world. Everyone should apparently learn to speak Mandarin, and learn how to write code… Meg Wolitzer
“ There were the signed, spiral-bound Spirit-in-the-Woods yearbooks from three summers in a row and the aerial photograph of everyone at camp the second summer. In it, Ethan's feet were planted on Jule'… Meg Wolitzer
“ ...because when you're young, you don't really believe you'll ever be anything other than young. Meg Wolitzer
“ She understood that it had never just been about talent: it had also always been about money. Ethan was brilliant at what he did, and he might well have made it even if Ash’s father hadn’t encouraged… Meg Wolitzer
“ I always thought talent was everything, but maybe it was always money. Or even class. Or if not class exactly, connections. Meg Wolitzer
“ But, she knew, you didn’t have to marry your soulmate, and you didn’t even have to marry an Interesting. You didn’t always need to be the dazzler, the firecracker, the one who cracked everyone up, or… Meg Wolitzer
“ People like to warn you that by the time you reach the middle of your life, passion will begin to feel like a meal eaten long ago, which you remember with great tenderness. Meg Wolitzer
“ You sometimes heard about the marginally talented wives of powerful men publishing children's books or designing handbags or, most commonly, becoming photographers. There might even be a show of the w… Meg Wolitzer
“ But clearly life took people and shook them around until finally they were unrecognizable even to those who had once known them well. Still, there was power in once having known someone. Meg Wolitzer
“ No, of course not. I just feel content,” she said carefully.“That’s an old person’s word,” said Ethan. Meg Wolitzer
“ The minute you had kids you closed ranks. You didn't plan this in advance, but it happened. Families were like individual, discrete, moated island nations. The little group of citizens on the slab of… Meg Wolitzer
“ The generation that had information, but no context. Butter, but no bread. Craving, but no longing. Meg Wolitzer
“ Twitter," said Manny, waving his hand. "You know what that is? Termites with microphones. Meg Wolitzer
“ Jealousy was essentially "I want what you have," while envy was "I want what you have, but I also want to take it away so you can't have it. Meg Wolitzer
“ But here was where the question of talent became slippery, for who could say whether Spirit-in-the-Woods had ever pulled incipient talent out of a kid and activated it, or whether the talent had been… Meg Wolitzer
“ We had a good marriage," he said. "I just thought it would be so much longer." Then he shrugged, and coughed away a sob, this thin man in his sixties with the soft androgynous face that aging seemed t… Meg Wolitzer
“ Though Jonah felt transfixed inside his own childhood, no one else saw him as a child. He was already over the hump of middle age, heading rapidly toward those year that no one like to speak of. The b… Meg Wolitzer
“ Dennis was present, still present, and this, she thought as she stayed landed against him, was no small talent. Meg Wolitzer
“ Soon, she and the rest of them would be ironic much of the time, unable to answer an innocent question without giving their words a snide little adjustment. Fairly soon after that, the snideness would… Meg Wolitzer
