“The human race is all the same when it comes to romantic relations,' said the Major. 'A startling absence of impulse control combined with complete myopia.” — Helen Simonson Copy Share Image
I later realized that this is my view of passion: It is rooted in genuine friendship. Chemistry may be two strangers exchanging smoldering looks—but… — Helen Simonson Copy Share Image
“There is often an inverse correlation between genius and personal hygiene.” — Helen Simonson Copy Share Image
But it's not enough to be in love. It's about how you spend your days, what you do together, who you choose as friends,… — Helen Simonson Copy Share Image
My neighbor Alice Pierce is fond of singing folk music to her garden plants. Thinks it makes them grow or something. The Major had often wondered how a wailing rendition of 'Greensleeves' would encourage greater raspberry production but Alice insisted that it worked far better than chemical fertilizers, and she did produce several kinds of fruit in pie-worthy quantitites. No… — Helen Simonson Copy Share
“do you really know what it means to be in love with an unsuitable woman?" "Is there any other kind?” — Helen Simonson Copy Share Image
“So he dreams himself the life he cannot have?” “Exactly. But we, who can do anything, we refuse to live our dreams on the… — Helen Simonson Copy Share Image
“he realized he had inspired a sense of trust and indebtedness that would make it entirely impossible for an honorable man to attempt to… — Helen Simonson Copy Share Image
“At our age, surely there are better things to sustain us, to sustain a marriage, than the brief flame of passion?" ..."You are mistaken,… — Helen Simonson Copy Share Image
“It took him a moment to realize that they had been painted to look like fingernails, and he sighed over the extraordinary range of… — Helen Simonson Copy Share Image
“She looked at him and he read in her eyes a disappointment that he should have stooped to the dead relative excuse. Yet he was as entitled as the next man to use it. People did it all the time; it was understood that there was a defined window of availability beginning a decent few days after a funeral and… — Helen Simonson Copy Share
“He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter—the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability if its steady progress through the postal system; the passing from bag to bag and postman to postman until a lone man in a van pulls up to the door and pushes a small pile… — Helen Simonson Copy Share