Elinor Lipman > Quotes

“It was a noteworthy lesson, even for someone who'd been fed a daily diet of italicized lessons: that people in high places, luminaries with advanced degrees in Classics and in possession of excellent manners, can disappoint you as profoundly as anyone else.”
― Elinor Lipman, My Latest Grievance: A Screwball Literary Comedy About Mothers and Family―Witty, Funny Coming-of-Age Story

“There is an old Jewish story, an ordinary Jewish joke. A father was teaching his little son to be less afraid and have more courage. “Jump,” he said, “and I will catch you.” And the little boy trusted him and the little boy jumped. And when his father caught him he felt filled with love. And when he didn’t, he was filled with something else…something more. Life. (From the movie 'Then She Found Me.')”
― Elinor Lipman, Then She Found Me

“It was not complicated, and, as my mother pointed out, not even personal: They had a hotel; they didn't want Jews; we were Jews. (The Inn at Lake Devine)”
― Elinor Lipman, The Inn at Lake Devine

“Even twenty-three months after his death, his absence is always present.”
― Elinor Lipman, The View From Penthouse B

“That's how it was on Irving Circle and how I was raised: You made the best out of what was within reach, which meant friendships engineered by parents and by the happenstance of housing. I stayed with it because we both had queenly older sisters who rarely condescended to play with us, because Shelley was adopted and I was not, because Shelley had Clue and Life, and I did not”
― Elinor Lipman, The Inn at Lake Devine

“She takes cookbooks out of the library and finds recipes that add a little glamour to our lives without expensive ingredients, so a pea soup that employs a ham bone might start with sautéed cumin seeds or a grilled cheese sandwich is elevated to an entrée with the addition of an exotic slaw on the plate. We mostly get along fine, and our division of labor is fair: cook and dishwasher, optimist and pessimist.”
― Elinor Lipman, The View From Penthouse B

“He wasn’t a jealous husband, but he was a sentimental one.”
― Elinor Lipman, The View From Penthouse B

“I hadn't known up to that moment that I had a surname that was recognizably Jewish, or that people named Marx would be unwelcome somewhere in the United States because of it.”
― Elinor Lipman, The Inn at Lake Devine

“Vanitas vanitatum: elective surgery, in other words.”
― Elinor Lipman, The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

“The New Yorkers by Cathleen Schine”
― Elinor Lipman, Good Riddance: A Witty Romantic Comedy of Family Secrets, Absurd Entanglements, and Jane Austen Charm

“for those who notice, his face wears his goodness quite handsomely.”
― Elinor Lipman, On Turpentine Lane

“You’re a serious one, aren’t you?” I confirmed that I was and always would be: a serious infant, a serious child, a serious teenager, a serious student, a serious adult.”
― Elinor Lipman, The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

“in”
― Elinor Lipman, The Dearly Departed

“We had identical sentences but very different degrees of shame (214).”
― Elinor Lipman, Ms. Demeanor

“Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin”
― Elinor Lipman, Good Riddance: A Witty Romantic Comedy of Family Secrets, Absurd Entanglements, and Jane Austen Charm

“How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life by Mameve Medwed”
― Elinor Lipman, Good Riddance: A Witty Romantic Comedy of Family Secrets, Absurd Entanglements, and Jane Austen Charm

“He won a free teeth-bleaching, upper and lower arches, in a dentist’s lottery. It explained his too-easy grin and his drinking coffee through a straw during what would later be classified as our first date.”
― Elinor Lipman, The Pursuit of Alice Thrift

“The Republic of Love by Carol Shields”
― Elinor Lipman, Good Riddance: A Witty Romantic Comedy of Family Secrets, Absurd Entanglements, and Jane Austen Charm

“Selling the Lite of Heaven by Suzanne Strempek Shea”
― Elinor Lipman, Good Riddance: A Witty Romantic Comedy of Family Secrets, Absurd Entanglements, and Jane Austen Charm

“Mandy! What’s your goal in life? Visualize it! When you visualize, you materialize.”
― Elinor Lipman, Ms. Demeanor