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Courtney
https://www.goodreads.com/cdmcc
“Misty's personality was a deliberate creation. She felt she was not unlike one of those seashells that look elaborate, but is only the housing for a very soft animal. There was no point—and no fun—in committing the imitative fallacy in matters of self, especially when the self you were housing was moved by scenes of ordinary human kindness. It seemed to her unwise to let the world at large know how easily moved she was, so she kept it to herself. Even John Bride, who behaved like a creature from another planet who had come to earth to see how its creatures might amuse him, was unaware of how deep her feelings were.”
― Happy All the Time
― Happy All the Time
“I cried only once during the twenty-one-hour flight. I was looking out the window at the moon and thinking of the last long trip I took across the sky, and of the person who went with me and didn't come back. For a while, it was as poisonous and wrenching as it had been since the day it happened, as intolerable: a crime against nature. Then the grief went back to sleep in my body. And it was again nature herself.
Nature. Mother Nature. She is free to do whatever she chooses.”
― The Rules Do Not Apply
Nature. Mother Nature. She is free to do whatever she chooses.”
― The Rules Do Not Apply
“But there is, also, the summoning world, the admirable energies of the world, better than anger, better than bitterness and, because more interesting, more alleviating. And there is the thing that one does, the needle one plies, the work, and within that work a chance to take thoughts that are hot and formless and to place them slowly and with meticulous effort into some shapely heat-retaining form, even as the gods, or nature, or the soundless wheels of time have made forms all across the soft, curved universe - that is to say, having chosen to claim my life, I have made for myself, out of work and love, a handsome life.”
― Upstream: Selected Essays
― Upstream: Selected Essays
“Misty sat in her office staring at the pear she had bought for her lunch. It was a hard, unripe little Seckel pear and the thought of eating it upset her. She sat reflecting on the civil war between her character and personality. One had trapped the other. Her character, she decided, was like the tender stomach of a porcupine and her personality was a bunch of quills. When the porcupine is frightened, she knew, it rolls itself up into a ball to protect its vulnerable stomach from harm. The enemy does not know how soft the porcupine is inside; only the porcupine does.”
― Happy All the Time
― Happy All the Time
“Back in New York, my dad refused to admit that he had a wife, much less a daughter on the way. This fantasy came to an end when he picked up his mail to find a postcard from a grinning woman, with a swelling belly, firing off automatic weapons with a group of equally happy Uzbek men. The caption read, 'Enjoying the afternoon with your daughter!'
On July 19, exactly four weeks before I was born, my father opened the door to find a woman wearing a burka, the traditional dress of Iran. When my mother finally went into labor at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, my dad was finally forced to venture outside his circle of comfort. Having done so—and meeting me—he realized it wasn't so bad out there.”
― Trying to Float: Coming of Age in the Chelsea Hotel
On July 19, exactly four weeks before I was born, my father opened the door to find a woman wearing a burka, the traditional dress of Iran. When my mother finally went into labor at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital, my dad was finally forced to venture outside his circle of comfort. Having done so—and meeting me—he realized it wasn't so bad out there.”
― Trying to Float: Coming of Age in the Chelsea Hotel
Courtney’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Courtney’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,455 books
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5,704 friends
1,473 books
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830 friends
650 books
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38 friends
909 books
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105 friends
379 books
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54 friends
2,268 books
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22 friends
731 books
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174 friends
1,132 books
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71 friends
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