"Spelling is a way to make words safe, at least for now, until another technology appears to soften attacks launched from the mouth."
"Family seems so rich and complicated to me. There's meant to be this unfailing biological loyalty and yet at the same time it's this theatre for various kinds of cruelty. I know it doesn't always work out that way, but the worst possible behaviour is sort of allowed for. It looks to me like an endlessly rich container for really terrible drama, but also pretty grand love. It accommodates such a variety of feeling in such a natural way, and it feels so relatable, and yet it's such a funny construct, socially, the family."
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Source: This week in fiction:Ben Marcus by Deborah Treisman, www.newyorker.com. May 11, 2013.
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"Being with him was like being alone underwater - everything was slow; nothing counted; I could not be harmed; I would feel dry and cold when I resurfaced."
"It amazes me that parents are allowed to raise kids. There's so much power and often very little accountability."
"It's lonely to listen to the pleasure of others, not that I've made a habit of that kind of eavesdropping. There's joy and passion in the next room, in the next bed, but it's not yours."
"In some sense, prose fiction is just a way of unlocking a space. If I can unlock the space, it comes out and it's vivid, I find that I care about it, and it's part of me."
"Eventually you stop paying attention to your own feelings when there's nothing to be done about them."