“You realize something once, when you are nine, and then you realize it again when you are ten, and you realize when you are eleven, twelve, but every year you see that what you thought you understood a year ago,… — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
“These were wise, modern children, and they knew: a mother could be a witch, a child could be a criminal. A librarian could be… — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
“Because what it's come down to, after that whole messy spring, that whole tortured summer, all the time since, is this: I no longer… — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
“He started Number the Stars before we were even out of the store. "The only problem is, I already know how it ends," he… — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
“So here, patient listener: your soothing epilogue. Imagine him happy. Imagine him spinning in circles... Imagine his heaven, where he can float through characters… — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
“And for what portion of human history had people even had desk jobs? Maybe the last four hundred years, out of four million? It… — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
“...all I knew were novels. It gave me pause, for a moment, that all my reference points were fiction, that all my narratives were… — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
“I could put a book in his hands, but I couldn't take him by the ankles and dip him headfirst in another world. And… — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
“On my mental instant replay, I realized that obliquely comparing his family to the Nazis was maybe not my finest moment. He was quiet… — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
“The whole damn century would've made more sense backwards. Where we ended is worse than where we began.” — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
“But here at Laurelfield, there was something more in the mornings, a buzzing sensation about the whole house, as if it weren't the servants… — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
“Very few writers thank their mothers for keen editorial insight; I'm happy to be the exception.” — Rebecca Makkai Copy Share Image
