French Exit

“He was a pile of American garbage and she feared she would love him forever.”

“Do you ever feel,” she asked, “that adulthood was thrust upon you at too young an age, and that you are still essentially a child mimicking the behaviors of the adults all around you in hopes they won’t discover the meager contents of your heart?”

“Frances had come to think of gift-giving as a polite form of witchcraft.”

“Frances lit a cigarette. "Do you regret not having children?""Never once. Never for a day. Do you regret having one?"Frances laughed."I'm being serious, " said Joan."Oh. Well, sometimes I do, to be honest.""But you wouldn't change him.""Yes, I would.""But you wouldn't change him much.""I'd change him quite a bit.""But you love him.""So much that it pains me.”

“he didn’t want to grow up. Adulthood had no benefits that he could see and he was loath to join that cruel population.”

“Well, for one," said Frances, "that's an extremely shitty thing to say to me. Two, the glamour passed a long time ago, and toy know very well that it did. And third, three, yes, my life is riddled by cliches, but do you know what a cliche is? It's a story so fine and thrilling that it's grown old in its hopeful retelling.”

“Who has died, and what was their purpose, and did they fulfill their potential?”

“In the late afternoon the group assembled for cocktails. Without consorting about it they'd all dressed up, and the women's perfumes fought for supremacy in the living room. The sun set, candles were lit; Mme Reynard found an English dictionary among the cookbooks and proposed they play the game called Dictionary, whereby a player assigns an incorrect definition to an unknown word in hopes of fooling the other players.She claimed the secateur was the sabateur's assistant. Malcom that costalgia was a shared reminiscence, Susan that a remotion was a lateral promotion, Frances that polonaise was an outmoded British condiment fabricated from a horse's bone marrow, Madeline that a puncheon was a contentious luncheon, and Joan that a syrt was a Syrian breath mint. Julius, whose English was not fully matured, said that unbearing was the act of "removing a bear from a peopled premises.”

“Possibly you won’t like to think of your mother as one who lived, but I’ll tell you something: it’s fun to run from one brightly burning disaster to the next.”

“Do you ever feel," she asked, "that adulthood was thrust upon you at too young an age, and that you are still essentially a child mimicking the behaviours of the adults all around you in hopes they won't discover the meager contents of your heart?”

“Price was never recognized for physical mayhem, but his dismissals were just the same as a wallop in the face.”

“yes, my life is riddled by clichés, but do you know what a cliché is? It’s a story so fine and thrilling that it’s grown old in its hopeful retelling.”

“Frances, smiling, folded the note and returned it to the captain's pocket. She occasionally in her life found herself loving men not in spite of but for their stupidity. Suavity was never more than playacting, she knew this, and it endeared them to her that they themselves were unaware of their transparency. She hung her shoes from her hooked fingers, walking barefoot along the dim, carpeted halls to her suite. All were asleep and it was so quiet, and she felt youthful and glad. Small Frank was up, waiting on the bed. His eyes narrowed as she entered."Spare me," she said. "You haven't got a leg to stand on." She moved to the bathroom to draw herself a bath.”

“Frances was apologetic but immovable: she was engaging her crisis in full dramatic tilt and wanted, needed to face the limitless ocean with a terrific, stabbing pain in her heart. She asked Malcolm for his cash and he passed it over.”

“Susan thought of Malcolm as an exotic pet, a stopgap antidote to postcollege doldrums, but then something terrible happened, which was that she fell in love with him.”

“Yes, my life is riddled by clichés, but do you know what a cliche is? It’s a story so fine and thrilling that it’s grown old in it’s hopeful retelling. People tell it. Not so many live it. – Frances”

“Well, for one," said Frances, "that's an extremely shitty thing to say to me. Two, the glamour passed a long time ago, and you know very well that it did. And third, three, yes, my life is riddled by cliches, but do you know what a cliche is? It's a story so fine and thrilling that it's grown old in its hopeful retelling.”

“Crossing the square at Saint-Sulpice, he split through a stream of nuns, who, as insects interrupted, lost the scent of their paths and spun away in eddies.”

“do you know what a cliché is? It’s a story so fine and thrilling that it’s grown old in its hopeful retelling.”

“Men and women throwing themselves out of windows. What you want is to know someone’s there; you also want them to leave you alone. I’ve got that with Don. But, I was shocked because I suddenly understood that the heart takes care of itself. We allow ourselves contentment; our heart brings us ease in it’s good time. - Joan”

“Oh, to be youngish and in love-ish!”

“Sometimes he looked like an angry mouse, sometimes wise; on this day, as he sat waiting for Frances to arrive, he resembled a mouse who wished he were another mouse.”

“All good things must end,’ said Frances Price. She was a moneyed, striking woman of sixty-five years, easing her hands into black calfskin gloves on the steps of a brownstone in New York City’s Upper East Side.”

“It was faith that enabled him to do this, faith that every hurtling vehicle would elect to stop short of killing him.”

“You can and maybe it’s inevitable but I’m telling you it’s a waste of your own time and that by hating him you’re only empowering him and giving him more credit than he deserves. Your father is an emotional moron, but he isn’t evil. – Frances”

“Susan paused a pause which, the moment Malcolm heard it, he knew something ugly was on the other end of it. He waited for the ugliness, and here it was: "He's asked me to marry him," Susan said.”

“Frances said, “I ran from one brightly burning disaster to the next, pal. That’s the way I was. Possibly you won’t like to think of your mother as one who lived, but I’ll tell you something: it’s fun to run from one brightly burning disaster to the next.”

“She shut the door in his face and retired to the library, ringing the maid for an old-fashioned. The winter sun was radiant in the windows and her blood thrilled at life’s gruesome pageant.”

“You get older and you don’t even want love. Not the love we believed in when we were young. Who has the energy for that? I mean, when I think of the way we used to carry on about it. – Joan”

“Do you ever feel,” she asked, “that adulthood was thrust upon you at too young an age, and that you are still essentially a child mimicking the behaviors of the adults all around you in hopes they won’t discover”