Ruthie

“Ex-wife Grade A, I was. Sex-appeal, dresses well, looks young, dances lightly, can make wisecracks, and is self-supporting. Lets a man talk. Does not gold-dig, except for another round of li- queurs after dinner. Never passes out or gets raucous, or gets sick. Not susceptible to the “I want you, I want you, I want you” attitude, but likely to succumb to “pity me, my life is lonely”— once with any man.”
― Ursula Parrott, Ex-Wife

“Yes, another Great Romance would be the death of me. One gets the same feeling, or near enough, on four Manhattans if they’re good; and that failing, one can see what five will do. The hangover from Manhattan’s shorter’n that from Romances. . . .”
― Ursula Parrott, Ex-Wife

“I felt cold and dry, like a Martini.”
― Ursula Parrott, Ex-Wife

“I was twenty-seven. More than a thousand crowded days intervened between myself and that younger woman who be- lieved she could not live without Peter. When, rarely, now, I was reminded of the Peter I had known, I thought of him kindly, as someone with whom I had shared a painful postadolescence, someone who no doubt had been as bewildered as I about most things. He and I were married and had a child and separated, before either of us grew up.”
― Ursula Parrott, Ex-Wife