“So much of being a good friend was knowing when to keep your mouth shut.” — Emma Straub Friend Copy Share Image
“Laura was going to sew herself into the shape of happiness all on her own.” — Emma Straub Happiness Copy Share Image
“No on thought that they would be anything more or less than perfectly fine.” — Emma Straub Copy Share Image
“A good swimming pool could do that—make the rest of the world seem impossibly insignificant, as far away as the surface of… — Emma Straub Insignificant Copy Share Image
“Having a daughter whose company he actually enjoyed was one of his favorite accomplishments.” — Emma Straub Accomplishments Copy Share Image
“She wanted the world to stop and take notice before hobbling forward, forever changed. The problem was that no one seemed to… — Emma Straub Changed Copy Share Image
“...all she wanted was a button she could push to pause her age, just for a little while, a few years, while… — Emma Straub Age Copy Share Image
“Leaving. That was the word she liked to use. Not going away, which implied a return, but leaving, which implied a jet… — Emma Straub Copy Share Image
“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… — Emma Straub Young people Copy Share Image
“That was what love was, though, wasn't it? Holding each other's misery as close as your own?” — Emma Straub Love Copy Share Image
“What were parents anyway, except two people who had once thought they were the smartest people in the world? They were a… — Emma Straub Parenting Copy Share Image
“There was nothing in life harder or more important than agreeing every morning to stay the course, to go back to your… — Emma Straub Every morning Copy Share Image
“Teenagers and younger children did not need to sit in business class, let alone first—that was Franny’s philosophy. The extra room was… — Emma Straub Business Copy Share Image
“Once Charles arrived, Franny would start laughing the way she had when she was twenty-four, and the rest of them could start… — Emma Straub Best friend Copy Share Image
“... She might have thought that it was the case, that all things worked out in the end, and that the world… — Emma Straub Better now 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… — Emma Straub Mentally ill Copy Share Image
“It's a rental," I said, realizing when I said it that our house was the only rental on the block. Maybe something… — Emma Straub Modern dance Copy Share Image
“Yes, it was true that Franny had gotten thicker in the last decade, but that was what happened unless you were a… — Emma Straub Beauty Copy Share Image
“Timing was everything—that was more and more obvious the older you got, when you finally understood that the universe wasn’t held together… — Emma Straub Fate Copy Share Image
“Elizabeth was happy in her marriage, she really was. It was just that sometimes she thought about all the experiences she’d never… — Emma Straub Elizabeth Copy Share Image
“Maybe that was what the costumes were about, the goofy T-shirts, but inside her head, which is where she heard the music,… — Emma Straub Childhood Copy Share Image
“Having a daughter whose company he actually enjoyed was one of Jim’s favorite accomplishments. The odds were against you, in all matters… — Emma Straub Business Copy Share Image
“Families were nothing more than hope cast out in a wide net, everyone wanting only the best.” — Emma Straub Family Copy Share Image
“Even if she wasn't happy on the inside, the outside could be something else entirely. There was always another character to play.” — Emma Straub Copy Share Image
“They were with their mother, and so they were acting like children.” — Emma Straub Children Copy Share Image
“Some people smoked crack in alleyways. Franny ate chocolate. On the scale of things, it seemed entirely reasonable.” — Emma Straub Chocolate Copy Share Image
“Laura wanted all of it back, every moment, so that she could live it all over again.” — Emma Straub Every moment Copy Share Image
“Maybe that was the key to all good relationships, having oceans of time apart.” — Emma Straub Good relationship Copy Share Image
“If I'd had a friend next to me, I would have squeezed her arm and said, Can you believe this? - but… — Emma Straub Friendship Copy Share Image
“It was nice to be in such close physical proximity, even though they hadn't spoken in months, and only via cursory birthday… — Emma Straub Sister Copy Share Image
“It is not so much a matter of traveling as of getting away; which of us has not some pain to dull,… — Emma Straub Travel Copy Share Image
“Like most things, sex got better with age until one hit a certain plateau, and then it was like breakfast, unlikely to… — Emma Straub Copy Share Image
“She had the wild look of someone who hadn’t slept in twenty-four hours, with purplish semicircles underneath both her eyes. Being eighteen… — Emma Straub Eighteen Copy Share Image
“Islands, being harder to get to, naturally separated some of the wheat from the chaff, which was the entire philosophy behind places… — Emma Straub Children Copy Share Image
“She’d read all of Jane Austen that year—Austen was good, but when you told people you liked Pride and Prejudice, they expected… — Emma Straub Austen Copy Share Image
“If the Enchanted Forest were in a movie, they’d always be playing Bob Dylan or Van Morrison or maybe even Leonard Cohen… — Emma Straub Enchanted Copy Share Image
“Some people claimed that wisdom came with age, but Annie had never found that to be true. Look at all the old… — Emma Straub Age Copy Share Image
