321 Quotes by Ottessa Moshfegh

I found my way into the Met one afternoon in early September. I guess I wanted to see what other people had done with their lives, people who had made art alone, who had stared long and hard at bowls of fruit.

All I had to offer were my skills as a doormat, a blank wall, someone desperate enough to do anything—just short of murder, let's say—simply to get someone to like me, let alone love me.

Perhaps I was lucky after all. It's very hard to measure out, in hindsight, who had it worse than whom.

A grown woman is like a coyote -she can get by on very little.Men are more like house cats. Leave them alone for too long and they 'll die of sadness.

Similarly, I did not like to dance or do sports. I did not listen to the Beatles or watch Ed Sullivan on TV. I wasn't interested in fun or popularity back then. I preferred to read about ancient times, distant lands. Knowledge of anything current or faddish made me feel I was just a victim of isolation. If I avoided all that on purpose, I could believe I was in control.

I was never allowed to have any pets. Sometimes I think a puppy might have changed everything.

I'd never learned how to relate to people, much less how to speak up for myself. I preferred to sit and rage quietly.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life! xoxo"I had no idea what I'd said to inspire Reva to leave me such a patronizing note of encouragement. Maybe I'd made a pact with her in my blackout: "Let's be happy! Let's live every day like it's our last!" Barf. I got up and snatched the note off the fridge and crumpled it in my fist. That made me feel a little better.

Every time I saw Lacey, she'd gained five more pounds. She was turning into the kind of obese girl who does her hair like a forties pinup and wears bright red lipstick, a blue polka-dot dress with a white doily collar, colorful tattoos across her huge, smushed cleavage, as if these considerations would distract us from how fat and miserable she'd become.