Jacob Dewey Fetter

“Here is the problem: You can only desire something you don't have-that's how desire works. And we had each other. Resolutely. Neither of us with a stray glance at another. After Adam and I were married, when I'd go out into the world, I'd see that the men I found myself drawn to were almost replicas of Adam, just like that guy in Lisbon. I wanted nothing different. I just missed the longing. We are not supposed to want the longing, but there it is. So what do you do with that? Forget it, there's no use talking about this. Talking about this doesn't make it better.”
― Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble

“What if one of the imperatives we never understood was about love and therefore marriage? Meaning, what if we search to make sure we are lovable and worthy of someone who commits to us absolutely and exclusively, and the only way we can truly confirm we are worth these things is if someone wants to marry us; someone says, ‘Yes, you are the one I will love exclusively. You are worthy of this.’ And then, only when you’re actually married, once this need is fulfilled, you can for the first time wonder if you even wanted to be married or not.”
― Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble

“We fall in love and we decide to marry in this one incredible moment, and what if everything that happens after that is about trying to remember that moment?”
― Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble

“It was like those T-shirts all my daughter’s friends were wearing to school now, the ones that said THE FUTURE IS FEMALE in big block letters. How they march around in broad daylight in shirts like that. But the only reason it’s tolerated is that everyone knows it’s just a lie we tell to girls to make their marginalization bearable. They know that eventually the girls will be punished for their futures, so they let them wear their dumb message shirts now.”
― Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble