19 Quotes by Julia Phillips

Her life was like running on a treadmill or riding on a stationary bike; it was aerobic, it was healthy, but she wasn’t going anywhere.

We’re smart enough to know we need to live in groups to survive, but we’re still animals and we needs lots of room. In the case of the male of the species we also probably need that-guy-over-there’s space. And his wife and cow, too.

She was not a woman made for sitting home and nursing. She craved things darker, stranger, out of bounds.

It hurts too much to break your own heart out of stupidity, to leave a door unlocked or a child untended and return to discover that whatever you value most has disappeared. No. You want to be intentional about the destruction. Be a witness. You want to watch how your life will shatter.

She caught the tail of her repulsion before it passed; she had to hold on to it, a snake in the hand, otherwise she would forgive him too soon.

Loving someone close-up – that was difficult.

Everyone looked better at a distance. Everyone sounded sweetest when you did not have to hear them talk too long.

Everyone looked better at a distance. Everyone sounded sweetest when you did not have to hear them talk too long. After her husband hung up, Natasha skated past her brother at the wall, their mother cleaning her glasses beside him. Loving someone close-up – that was difficult.

He died and the whole Soviet Union followed. Revmira’s country, her young face, the entire course of her life had changed. Since she started at the hospital, she had sat next to more than a hundred persons to help them go, so she knew death well: the release of breath, the rattle, the calm. Her parents went the same way, one after the other. And she missed them. She had resigned herself a long time ago to missing all the people who left her.