Quotes from Ann Packer

How Much Do We Owe People We Love?

A broken heart can masquerade as a cold one.

It paid barely a living wage, but he stayed with it—gradually and in the end gratefully arriving at the point in life when you understand there are no great changes ahead.

Bill supposed that for every child there was a defining age, a fixed reference point in relation to which his parents would always view him; whereas the child's own truest self would always be the present one.

Such is the lot of the narcissist's child, to inherit her parent's umbrage over the world's indifference.

She was one of those people who seemed to regard busyness as a contest you could win. p. 246

Sarabeth wondered at the sheer energy it must have taken for her mother to be dissatisfied by so much. Her psyche was like a huge grid of mousetraps, set to spring at the lightest touch. There were traps for Sarabeth's father,traps for Sarabeth. The biggest trap, though, was the grid itself,the trap of being Lorelei.

if it was your fault, then you weren't powerless--you weren't at the mercy of stuff just happening." "Your always going to be at thee mercy of stuff just happening, no matter what.

You know what 'congregate' means? It's from the Latin. 'Greg' means herd. 'Con' means with. We're with our herd.

Lonely is a funny thing,' she said slowly. 'It's almost like another person. After a while, it'll keep you company if you'll let it

right? But no. Don't hitchhike, the driver

Matrimony, he began to think, was a cure for an illness he hadn't known he had.

She and Dan were on the patio, wrapped in blankets against the cool evening air. Sasha and I were at the dining room table playing Scrabble, and Peter lay on the floor reading comic books.

Meaning bad isn't the issue. Meaning you do what you do. Not without consequences for other people, of course, sometimes very grave ones. But it's not very helpful to regard your choices as a series of right or wrong moves. They don't define you as much as you define them

Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease

Lake Mendota was a rippled silver, like a vast piece of silk spread out but had not yet been smoothed.