Hannah Selinger > Quotes

“Kids were always doing that, surprising you with their overnight changes, breaking your heart with the reminders of how young and tender they still were.”
― Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms: A Novel

“They will do anything—anything—to make sure that their kids succeed at the expense of others. These women have political connections. They have connections to law enforcement. THEY ARE RUTHLESS. Do not trust anyone.”
― Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms: A Novel

“Over a decade later, perched on the precipice of an exit, I wasn’t sure if it had been worth it. If your trauma defines you—if it makes you capable of understanding the world differently, or if it gives you something to talk about and write about—is it worth the journey?”
― Hannah Selinger, Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly

“His wife was a stranger to him. Anna for President? Living in the house with her”
― Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms: A Novel

“The PTO was benevolent. The PTO was grand in its ambition. The PTO was Saving the Children”
― Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms: A Novel

“She and Denny had chipped away at the rooms one at a time, building a Farrow & Ball fantasy: high-gloss, wallpaper, brushed brass, their living, breathing masterpiece, part of the pretension of existing in this wealthy New England town, where you had to dress up to walk the damn dog, for Christ’s sake.”
― Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms: A Novel

“I am not fucking around”
― Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms: A Novel

“Her nails were not painted”
― Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms: A Novel

“It did seem like each day the clock ticked back earlier and earlier, but what was she to do with all of those extra minutes—those extra hours—anyway? This time, it was not useful. When we want things to slow down, she thought, we cannot, and when we want things to speed up, they only drag on, like heels through wet sand.”
― Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms: A Novel

“Only after she had closed the door to the dark primary bathroom did she turn on a sconce and study her face. Forty-two years old. Fine lines just starting to crawl out from around her mouth, but otherwise—this she would confess—she wasn’t bad-looking. She had not fallen even a little gray yet, only dyed her hair to get rid of the ordinary brown color her mother used to refer to as mousy.”
― Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms: A Novel

“It had been a mistake”
― Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms: A Novel

“How could a dance for elementary school students, hosted by the PTO, be sold out? On sale at noon, sold out five minutes later, in a town where not one woman she knows appears to have an actual job. Click, click, click. Lost to the stay-at-home moms. Maybe she should have paid more attention to that newsletter, with all of those technicalities about early ticket releases or whatever it had said.”
― Hannah Selinger, Valley of the Moms: A Novel