Ann Leary > Quotes

“Stolen pleasures are always more thrilling than those come by honestly.”
― Ann Leary, The Good House

“I was born three drinks short of comfortable...'"

"But I knew what that guy meant about the way he was born three drinks short. It made me think about the first beer I ever drank, down at North Beach with a bunch of kids one summer night. It made me think about that first exquisite relief. It made me think about my ex-husband, Scott, who always said I should stop after the third drink. "That's when you get out of control," he'd say. I had no idea what we was talking about. After a couple of drinks is when I start to feel IN control.”
― Ann Leary, The Good House

“The boys had grown since I’d last seen them. I wouldn’t have recognized them in a group, but I find that the older I get, the more kids just look like kids. I don’t really notice them as much as I used to. On the other hand, I could have instantly picked Harry out of a lineup of similarly marked German shepherds, were there ever a need to do so. Harry was a wonderful character. The boys were just boys.”
― Ann Leary, The Good House

“Nurses have nerves of steel and the mind-over-matter proficiency of a Buddhist monk. If, for example, you haltingly inform a nurse that you have just passed what appeared to be a large part of your brain into the toilet, via the birth canal, the nurse will not gag but instead will admonish you for flushing it away before showing it to her. Blood, phlegm, and mucus—all things intrauterine or subdermal, septic or dyspeptic—are attended to with efficient grace by nurses, who are the underpaid soothers and healers in every hospital, all over the world.”
― Ann Leary, An Innocent, a Broad

“The simple truth is this: Most humans are very much alike. The simple and obvious truth is that there are very few variables to what a person might do, think, fear or desire in any given situation.”
― Ann Leary, The Good House

“Crazy bitch,” said Allen.”
― Ann Leary, The Good House

“And I’ve met a lot of people online whom I consider to be my very good friends, though we’ve never actually met in real life. I”
― Ann Leary, The Children

“And now I enjoy the fact that I have this alter blog persona that nobody in my life know about. I have a secret. I am somebody important. I have the paychecks to prove it. The fact that nobody knows about it makes me feel even more important.”
― Ann Leary, The Children

“Fine things had colors with evocative names--I knew this from reading Vogue, McCall's, and other magazines. common things were tan, blue, or white, but fine things were eggshell, cobalt, cafe au lait, ivory or cream.”
― Ann Leary, The Foundling

“us next weekend, I’d love to meet her.” “No, Jake, I think you misunderstood”
― Ann Leary, The Foundling

“The way she pronounced the word “knitting,” not “nidding” as we Americans say, but “knitting.”
― Ann Leary, I've Tried Being Nice: Essays