“Once Charles arrived, Franny would start laughing the way she had when she was twenty-four, and the rest of them could start setting one another on fire for all she cared. That’s what best friends did: ruin people for everyone… — Emma Straub Copy Share Image
“Now whenever Franny or Jim spoke to someone who kept a car in Manhattan, they reacted with quiet horror, like people who’d been subjected… — Emma Straub Copy Share
“There was nothing in life harder or more important than agreeing every morning to stay the course, to go back to your forgotten self… — Emma Straub Copy Share
“Having a daughter whose company he actually enjoyed was one of Jim’s favorite accomplishments. The odds were against you, in all matters of family… — Emma Straub Copy Share
“Once Charles arrived, Franny would start laughing the way she had when she was twenty-four, and the rest of them could start setting one… — Emma Straub Copy Share
“Teenagers and younger children did not need to sit in business class, let alone first—that was Franny’s philosophy. The extra room was for people… — Emma Straub Copy Share
“What were parents anyway, except two people who had once thought they were the smartest people in the world? They were a delusional species,… — Emma Straub Copy Share
“It's a rental," I said, realizing when I said it that our house was the only rental on the block. Maybe something unseemly had… — Emma Straub Copy Share
“Timing was everything—that was more and more obvious the older you got, when you finally understood that the universe wasn’t held together in any… — Emma Straub Copy Share
“Elizabeth was happy in her marriage, she really was. It was just that sometimes she thought about all the experiences she’d never gotten to… — Emma Straub Copy Share
“It was crazy, what young people believed was possible, what so many earnest twenty-three-year-olds took for granted about the rest of their lives.” — Emma Straub Copy Share
“...all she wanted was a button she could push to pause her age, just for a little while, a few years, while she got… — Emma Straub Copy Share
“No on thought that they would be anything more or less than perfectly fine.” — Emma Straub Copy Share
“That was what love was, though, wasn't it? Holding each other's misery as close as your own?” — Emma Straub Copy Share
“A good swimming pool could do that—make the rest of the world seem impossibly insignificant, as far away as the surface of the moon.” — Emma Straub Copy Share
