Stephanie Clifford > Quotes

“The world always said to just be yourself, but it turned out when Evelyn was herself, no guys were at all interested, so she was left with games of make-believe, expressing enthusiasm for whatever the men wanted to do, be it rock climbing or going to a cheese-beer pairing or a Knicks game.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“I always think the opening moments of a party are the hardest, before everyone has had enough to drink.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“It required an enormous amount of energy and time just to do errands like getting groceries. She was always sweaty after she got groceries.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“Last summer had meant lots of Sam Adams Summer Ale by herself on hot weekend days when it seemed like just her and the Dominican Day parade.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“Who are you trying to impress? You're twisting yourself into knots trying to fit in with this crowd. It isn't worth it.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“I just wanted to be open and honest, and being open and honest is a practice rather than a quality.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“She had tried. She had fought. And she had lost.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“She summahs in Lake James, how mahvelous”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“Evelyn let Camilla, as the higher-status person, extend her had first, a Babsism she remembered.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“She had been waiting, she thought. Always waiting. In New York, waiting for her life to be replaced by some other, more interesting life on offer. Waiting for money that she felt ought to be hers to flood in and elevate her position, from some male source...”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“I'm just saying that money is made in so many more interesting ways now.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“I made my money and can spend it as I want, just as you can spend the money you make as you want.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“Somewhere in the city, an orange cat finished chewing on a marjoram plant next to his studio apartment's door and leapt purring onto the shoulder of his owner, home early from work. Somewhere in the city, a young Chinese pianist sat down at a rehearsal hall and let his fingers play the first opening notes of the Emperor Concerto, notes that would envelop the small girl in row D of the Philharmonic that night in a shimmering cloud. A boy in Staten Island touched his finger to the lower back of the girl who had been just a friend until then. A woman in Hell's Kitchen stood in her dark attic garret, her paintbrush in hand, and stepped back from the painting of chartreuse highway and forest-green sky that had taken her two years to complete. A clerk in a Brooklyn bodega tapped her crimson fingernail on a box of gripe water, reassuring the new mother holding a wailing baby, and the mother's grateful smile almost made both of them cry themselves.”
― Stephanie Clifford

“Charlotte had enough money -- had always had enough money -- that she didn't have to worry about her behavior.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“[T]alking can lead to deeper connections. So my therapist said.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“She felt like she was breathing cotton.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“They had been nice to her, that was the surprising thing. She though they'd be cutting and they were kind. Welcoming.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“Everyone else had funds galore, if not from their job- and it rarely seemed to be from their job except for the bankers- then from trust funds, parental subsidies, or other mythical sources.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“...I know I asked, but I don't want to know. I do want to know, but I don't want to know. It doesn't matter. If it's not Tayeb whoever, it'll be something else, and I'd always be playing catch-up. I was always playing catch-up.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“. . . without any actual aristocracy in America, the best those who wanted to be upper class could do was create systems of exclusivity and codes of conduct.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“She didn't know where she was, and there was nowhere for her to go, and for just one moment, sweat pouring down her face, she felt free.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“She tried to do what the Equinox yoga instructor said to do and thank each thought for coming then let it float away, but the thoughts were not floating away and she couldn't force them away, not even here, where she was supposed to be able to escape.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“Evelyn was twenty-six, and for the first time in her life, she was seen. Recognized. It wasn't that heads were turning--she wouldn't ask that much--but just for a moment, one man would hold her gaze a little longer than he should. Or a woman's eyes would flick over her dress with jealousy. She could now be a missed connection on Craigslist, a fragment in a song lyric, the inspiration for a girl in a musical.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“Once these girls from outside the city get a little taste of fame, or even, really, acceptance -- well, what they think is acceptance -- it's just impossible.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“Companies were offering bribes to expand faster internationally, investors were scamming their clients, oil companies were funding warlords, manufacturers were skirting environmental regulations, all to make ever more money, yet no one from those groups were seemingly untouchable, protected by power and status and connections, and some were not.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“We all think we have our problems, but thank God we don't have husbands who don't support the Guggenheim.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“She backed away toward the door as, softly, too softly for anyone to hear, she joined in on "Don't ask where I'm going; just listen when I'm gone." She slipped out the door without anyone noticing.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“The macarons are coming!" Souse shouted, like an epicurean Paul Revere.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise

“...The scene I was in. It was just so much. I don't think you realize. The money it took. The competition over the invitations. The parties....It sounds ridiculous, saying it out loud, because it's just parties, but it mattered to me. Then. It was a place. It seemed solid. I couldn't keep up.”
― Stephanie Clifford, Everybody Rise