Marriage is a mysterious instituion, even from the inside.
Sometimes it can feel like a softly furnished minimum-security prison.
That was my experience anyway.
Chapter 77, p. 274
fiction was "the lie through which we tell the truth" (she was quoting Albert Camus)
Chapter 109, p. 437
"fate won't be fought"
Chapter 122, p. 479
We'd never been the sort of sisters who spoke or texted all he time, and now the less contact we had, the better. It would have been a failed charade if we had tried to feign closeness.
Chapter One, p. 27
In her view, the Disney franchise is yet another toxic American export, like carbon emissions or troop deployments or fast food or nuclear waste. . . . . Claire found the cartoons insipid and weirdly moralistic. . . . . She drew the line, however, at theme parks. Each time they visited [[her husband's]] mother in Florida, [[their daughter]] clamored to go to Disney World. Claire's answer, always, was a resounding "No."
p. 43
Under George W. Bush, matters of politics had a way of becoming referenda on the nation's masculinity: were we a nation of men (decisive, single-minded, unafraid to use force and to dominate) or girls (deliberative, empathetic, given to compromise)?
PROLOGUE, p. 13
Above all, no genre suited the baby boomers' dueling impulses of attractions and guilt toward American capitalism as well as the Mob drama. The notion that the American dream might at its core be a criminal enterprise lay at the center of the era's signature works. . . .
FIVE, "Difficult Men", p. 84
The majority of Americans grow up in cities and suburbs and are afraid of the woods. Horror movies exploit this fear: the person alone in the forest, the sounds of unknown nocturnal animals, the sheer panic of being lost at night.
Chapter Fourteen, p. 99
in the modern world, conflict is almost bound to end in stalemate. This shown in Korea, in Vietnam and in Afghanistan.
"Icy Winds", p. 541
