Liz Moore > Quotes

“Rich people, thought Judy—she thought this then, and she thinks it now—generally become most enraged when they sense they’re about to be held accountable for their wrongs.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“It was funny, she thought, how many relationships one could have with the same man, over the course of a lifetime together.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“For knowing too much, rather than too little. For a woman, neither was an acceptable way to be.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“We can do as we please, if we only learn not to care so much about what people think.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“the quickest way to make an attractive man ugly was to give him too much to drink.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“Kissing someone - someone you want to kiss, I mean - is like living inside the best song you ever heard. It's the same feeling.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“Only humans can hurt one another, Ada thought; only humans falter and betray one another with a stunning, fearsome frequency. As David's family had done to him; as David had done to her. And Ada would do it too. She would fail other people throughout her life, inevitably, even those she loved best.”
― Liz Moore, The Unseen World

“Panic,' said T.J. But no one raised a hand.

She explained. It came from the Greek god Pan: the god of the woods. He liked to trick people, to confuse and disorient them until they lost their bearings, and their minds.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“It was wonderful, thought Tracy, having friends like these, who seemed to see the parts of yourself you worked hardest to hide, and bring them into the light and celebrate them with a sort of tender ribbing that uplifted more than it put down.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“How many times in her life has she said yes to a boy or a man just because it was the easiest thing to do? How many times has she let a man take what he wanted, instead of taking something for herself?”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“I wouldn’t listen. I wanted everything to stay as it was. I was more afraid of the truth than the lie. The truth would change the circumstances of my life. The lie was static. The lie was peaceful. I was happy with the lie.”
― Liz Moore, Long Bright River

“Being humorless, she thought, was even worse than being dumb.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“This was the secret I learned that day: none of them want to be saved. They all want to sink backward toward the earth again, to be swallowed by the ground, to keep sleeping. There is hatred on their faces when they are roused from the dead.”
― Liz Moore, Long Bright River

“Do you ever worry that being born into money has stunted us?” Alice blanched. “I don’t mean anything by it,” said Delphine. “It’s just—lately I’ve been wondering whether having all of our material needs met from birth has been a positive aspect of our lives. It seems to me it may have resulted in some absence of yearning or striving in us. The quest, I like to call it. When one’s parents or grandparents have already quested and conquered, what is there for subsequent generations to do?”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“Her voice, it seemed, had been continuously decrescendoing since birth, so that by age twelve, she could scarcely be heard.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“This is one of the few sheer pleasures Louise knows in life: the near-otherworldly feeling of touching another human's body with your own body in a way that, for the first time, transcends mere friendliness. These are the times in her life that Louise has felt most acutely the animal nature of her humanity, and therefore they have been the most comforting. To be a human is complex, and often painful; to be an animal is comfortingly simple and good.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“I had ways of consoling myself. Yes, there was food but there was beyond food, this idea I had of an oversoul of loneliness. A connectedness among the world's lonely that I could turn to when I was very low. There was a delicious romance in being utterly alone, & I told myself I was nobler for it, & that there was a purpose to my solitude, O there must be.”
― Liz Moore

“This must be the most important factor in your choice of a life partner," he told Ada. "Who will most patiently and enthusiastically support your ambitions?”
― Liz Moore, The Unseen World

“Who on earth can explain, in words alone, the great gutting tenderness of holding your child in your arms? The animal feeling of it—the baby’s soft muzzle, the baby’s new skin (which throws into relief the wear your own has endured), the little hand reaching up to your face, searching for family. The quick small pats, light as moths, that land on your cheek and chest.”
― Liz Moore, Long Bright River

“In a moment of clarity, once, Kacey told me that time spent in addiction feels looped. Each morning brings with it the possibility of change, each evening the shame of failure. The only task becomes the seeking of the fix. Every dose is a parabola, low-high-low; and every day a series of these waves; and then the days themselves become chartable, according to how much time, in sum, the user spends in comfort or in pain; and then the months.”
― Liz Moore, Long Bright River

“To be a human is complex, and often painful; to be an animal is comfortingly simple and good.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“For a bonus, she asked them: Who knew the origins of the word? “Which word?” someone said. “Panic,” said T.J. But no one raised a hand. She explained. It came from the Greek god Pan: the god of the woods. He liked to trick people, to confuse and disorient them until they lost their bearings, and their minds. To panic, said T.J., was to make an enemy of the forest. To stay calm was to be its friend.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“Usually, she was gifted in the art of shutting up. Not today.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“ever notice how the children of rich people are never as smart as the parents? Never as ambitious, never as successful? You gotta have something to strive for in life.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“Listen,” said Delphine. “The best part of being married to George Barlow for a decade was learning that it’s all right not to do everything that’s expected of you all of the time. This is a notion that has been positively liberating for me. The way we were raised—the way our parents raised us, I mean—it trained us to think it’s our job to be absolutely correct in everything that we do. But it isn’t, Bunny. Do you see? We can have our own thoughts, our own inner lives. We can do as we please, if we only learn not to care so much about what people think.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“If she believed in a God, it was in one who functioned something like Louise in this moment: rooting for her charges from afar, mourning alongside them when they were rejected, celebrating every small victory that came their way. She noticed the lonely ones, the ones at the edge of the crowd; she felt in her heart a sort of wild affection for them, wanted to go to them, to stand next to them and pull them tightly to her side; and yet she also knew that to intervene in this way would disrupt something sacred that—at twelve and thirteen and fourteen years old—they were learning about themselves and the world. And this, too, was how she thought of God.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“But there's a difference, I believe, between two consenting adults making a thoughtful transaction and the kind of bargain that happens on the Ave, where some of the women would do anything for anyone, where some of the women need a fix so badly that they can't say no or yes.”
― Liz Moore, Long Bright River

“It's the Van Laars, and families like them, who have always depended on others.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“I’ve had a certain bad habit ever since I was a child. I duck what I can’t bring myself to acknowledge, turn away from anything that causes me to be ashamed, run away from it rather than addressing it. I am a coward, in this way.”
― Liz Moore, Long Bright River

“Since I was a small child, I have always tried to maintain my dignity in every situation. At work now, I strive to maintain my professional dignity. At home, with Thomas, I strive to maintain a certain parental dignity, to protect him from overhearing anything that might upset him, or anything untoward. Therefore, because it feels undignified, I have never enjoyed the feeling of anyone else worrying about me or being concerned for my well-being, preferring instead to give the impression that I am always fine, and that I have everything under control. Largely, I believe this image to be an honest one.”
― Liz Moore, Long Bright River