Lucy Ellmann > Quotes

“the fact that you’ll never know what sort of person you might have been if you’d read different stuff”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“The whole world organizes itself around the fact that people manage to get their awkward bodies in position to fuck, an achievement honored by toasters, tandems, and tax cuts.”
― Lucy Ellmann, Dot in the Universe

“GENERAL STATEMENT FOR ALL CONCERNED: I do not wish you to be perturbed in any way by my current uncommunicative behaviour. I wish it to be known that I am not pursuing any friendships at the moment because I can not think of anything to say and I suspect I am bad for people. I am too egotistically involved in my own decay to focus on the troubles and triumphs of others...”
― Lucy Ellmann, Man or Mango?

“the fact that we all go on pretending things are fine, hoping everything’s a-okay, even though everything is nowhere near okay and we all know it, no matter how many candlelit vigils you hold”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“the fact that there are times, maybe the most unlikely times, that you realize you're simply thrilled to be alive, and what a great piece of luck it is just to be a part of things, to have a body, so you can feel and see and walk the earth, for just a little while”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“he fact that there seems to be no problem in America that can’t be solved by murdering your whole family or your boss or a whole crowd of strangers, and maybe yourself”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“the fact that two whole jars of bay leaves is really like a lifetime’s supply, the fact that I wonder if every household has too many bay leaves, the fact that the number of bay leaves you own can easily get out of hand,”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“...the fact that there’s a lot you have to blank out if you want to get through life...”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“the fact that it’s unbelievable but every single thing alive has its own center of being, and looks out on the world from that point of view, even a worm, or a jellyfish, hamsters, owls, the fact that even a leaf has feelings, the fact that you know the leaves are enjoying this warm sun going right through them,”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“And they dare to rule the world! They have made it so ugly. Square houses! Their obsession with straight lines and right angles has ruined the earth! They consider all curves, all subtleties, all softness, all indefinites, female, and they shun them. They have poisoned and denatured everything they touch, and expect us to be grateful.”
― Lucy Ellmann, Man or Mango?

“the fact that nothing you do seems innocent anymore”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“the fact that I'd happily do just about anything for people, anything, even spend time with them, if they'd just stop hurting my feelings”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“Unable to make babies, they make bombs instead. Men menstruate by shedding other people's blood.”
― Lucy Ellmann, Man or Mango?

“the fact that a real apocalypse would be such a vindication, if you’d spent all this dough getting ready for it,”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“the fact that a police officer on TV said what used to be a fist fight or road rage is now a shooting, and what used to be a domestic dispute is now a gun rampage, and what used to be a tardy or disruptive student is now a school shooter, the fact that the police aren’t much better themselves, the fact that what used to be an arrest or a warning is now a split-second execution”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“the fact that now it’s Philip Glass on the radio, the fact that I wonder how many people in Ohio care about Philip Glass,”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“What is the point of labeling each individual piece of fruit? Buy the fruit, EAT the ad! We've carved a chunk out of the ozone, burned up all the rainforests, soon we won't be able to BREATHE, and all because we had to label each individual piece of fruit.”
― Lucy Ellmann, Man or Mango?

“their phones actually, trying to get inside them somehow,”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“Men like war: they do not hold much sway over birth, so they make up for it with death. Unlike women, men menstruate by shedding other people's blood.”
― Lucy Ellman

“the fact that I really need a professional declutterer, or at least a book on decluttering from the library, unless they've decluttered the library too and have no books anymore”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“the fact that I'd really like to be reading Persuasion right now instead of latticing pies, the fact that I never seem to get past Anne’s first reunion with Captain Wentworth lately, because Jake interrupts, the fact that all the older kids were the same, the fact that I have to hide out like Anne Frank almost, to read anything, the fact that I should have a little closet to go to, with a chair, a lamp, and a lock on the door, the fact that I guess it’s called a bathroom,”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“One of my cats reminds me of my mother. I pat my mother in her. Reincarnation of evaporated mother.”
― Lucy Ellmann, Man or Mango?

“dogs can be trained to predict their owners' epileptic fits, but not the other way around”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“the fact that we like Julie & Julia, only we just hate the Julie bits, the fact that why couldn’t they have just made a movie about Julia Child”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“She stood eating soup in her overgrown garden, looking up at stars she could not name.”
― Lucy Ellmann, Man or Mango?

“the fact that Stacy seems to feel some kind of rapport with that woebegone creature, the fact that whether this is because she feels fierce and free, or caged and cowed, doesn’t bear thinking about.”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“the fact that maybe men think if they just name everything, everything’ll be okay, the fact that it’s like dogs marking their territory”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“the fact that if we all blow ourselves to smithereens, at least Pepito has existed, and that is good, the fact that it’s just plain good he was in the world,”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“Italians answer the phone, “Pronto,” the fact that Mommy never knew what to say when they said that, the fact that she struggled with Italian during that year in Rome, poor duck.”
― Lucy Ellmann, Ducks, Newburyport

“The United States of America has now reached a whole new level of patriarchal absurdity. You mean they massacred the Indians, enslaved the Africans, cut down all the trees, poisoned all the rivers, and extinguished or imprisoned all the animals for THIS, this hellhole of bombast and hamburgers and opioid addictions and cardboard-box houses and pretend ideas? You mean they used up all the oxygen on 4th of July firecrackers and forcing kids to pledge allegiance to the flag every goddam day, drank Coke till they choked, spat tobaccy till they puked, fought cancer (but only for people with lots of money), nestled in Nestlés, slurped slurpees, burped burpees, handed on herpes, Tasered the wayward, jailed the frail and tortured about a million billion chickens (then fried and ate them), just so people can drive around and shoot each other and create GoFundMe sites to pay the hospital bills?”
― Lucy Ellmann, Things Are Against Us