Julia Phillips > Quotes

“Everyone looked better at a distance. Everyone sounded sweetest when you did not have to hear them talk too long.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“It hurts too much to break your own heart out of stupidity, to leave a door unlocked or a child untended and return to discover that whatever you value most has disappeared. No. You want to be intentional about the destruction. Be a witness. You want to watch how your life will shatter.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“But now she would live. She had to. It was what she did: live while others could not. There was no pleasure in it.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“He died and the whole Soviet Union followed. Revmira's country, her young face, the entire course of her life had changed. Since she started at the hospital, she had sat next to more than a hundred persons to help them go, so she knew death well: the release of breath, the rattle, the calm. Her parents went the same way, one after the other. And she missed them. She had resigned herself a long time ago to missing all the people who left her.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“You believe that you keep yourself safe, she thought. You lock up your mind and guard your reactions so nobody, not an interrogator or a parent or a friend, will break in.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“hurts too much to break your own heart out of stupidity, to leave a door unlocked or a child untended and return to discover that whatever you value most has disappeared. No. You want to be intentional about the destruction. Be a witness. You want to watch how your life will shatter.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“Everyone looked better at a distance. Everyone sounded sweetest when you did not have to hear them talk too long. After her husband hung up, Natasha skated past her brother at the wall, their mother cleaning her glasses beside him. Loving someone close-up—that was difficult.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“Why are you the way you are? And can’t you stop?”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“much. Everything that once propelled her was now gone. She used to be a storyteller, she used to have a sense of humor, she used to be a mother, but now she was—nothing.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“She caught the tail of her repulsion before it passed; she had to hold on to it, a snake in the hand, otherwise she would forgive him too soon.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“When they first learned her diagnosis, the sisters had cried over it together. Sam felt shattered. That was back when she pictured pain as something swift and final. She understood better, now, what it actually was—not a glass dropped onto a tile floor, one terrible burst, but a tree required to grow over years in a space that limited it. Branches curled in on themselves, leaves dropping. A living thing that was forced, relentlessly, to submit. That was how sorrow acted on them.”
― Julia Phillips, Bear

“Near him, she couldn't think of anything but him. But when they were a little apart she returned to herself, and she liked that woman she came back to. Someone...capable. Someone who maintained standards, who met commitments, who produced results. Someone who would be disappointed in a man who acted the way Max so often did. She should be disappointed with him.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“You want to be intentional about the destruction. Be a witness. You want to watch how your life will shatter.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“but what brought true joy in this life was a climbing salary, a full belly, a firmly connected radiator”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“You work harder. You exercise. Your clothing flatters. You keep the edge of your affection sharp, a knife, so that those near you know to handle it carefully. You think you established some protection and then you discover that you endangered yourself to everyone you ever met.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“Natasha would have to ration out her frustration to last the whole time.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“In the front seats, Eva and Petya argued over the ending of an Australian horror movie. Eva was winning, speaking with more conviction; Petya kept falling silent as he navigated around potholes in the road. The next time he downshifted, Eva turned in her seat to make her case to Marina. “The end of it is a fantasy, like a dream sequence, don’t you agree?” “I didn’t see the movie,” Marina said. Eva pursed her lips. “From what you heard us describe, though. Doesn’t it seem most likely that it’s a fantasy?” Marina shook her head. “I don’t know.” That familiar pressure began to come down on her chest. Petya, bringing the car back up to speed, glanced at his wife. “She hasn’t seen it. Leave her alone.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“the raw dough of an infant shaping into a determined child.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“Disappearing Earth was inspired by Russia and written in America.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“What was Sam afraid of? Withering away here. Dreaming of chances she'd never be able to take, and shriveling up from that denial, getting poorer and put under more pressure and pushed farther from the rest of the world. Compared to those fears, getting mauled by a bear seemed a delight.”
― Julia Phillips, Bear

“do it,” said Sophia. They were already at the crescent-shaped lot on the other side of the hill. He gave the key ring to the smaller girl. “It’s the black one there. The Surf.” Sophia skipped forward and opened the driver’s side. He got in, exhaling as he sat. She held on to the door handle. The side panel’s flawless paint reflected her body, dressed in purple cotton and rolled khaki. “How does it feel?” she asked. He shook his head. “You girls really helped me.” “Can you drive?” Alyona asked. “Yes,” he said. “You’re going where now?” “Home.” “Where’s that?” “Gorizont.” “I’ll take you,” he said. “Get in.” Sophia let go of the door. Alyona looked across the street at the bus stop. A bus would take them more than half an hour, while in a car they’d be home in ten”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“slipped”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“choosing to push the weapon back in herself. “What are we”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“He said, “Maybe they really are gone,” and she wished him dead in their place.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“bite their tongues instead of getting into another looping argument about danger.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“Madeline’s note did say that her office learned the bear had been a grizzly after all.”
― Julia Phillips, Bear

“because they were brave enough to survive on their own.”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth

“They were sisters and they would last past the end of time. Sam knew that. Then the bear. It closed its jaws over Elena’s face. Sam saw her sister go.”
― Julia Phillips, Bear

“There'd been only three hundred students in the whole school, which made it a tiny, gossipy hellhole, a bucket of crabs snapping at each other and falling over themselves.”
― Julia Phillips, Bear

“her youth in the brief reckless period between the Communists’ rigidity and Putin’s strength,”
― Julia Phillips, Disappearing Earth