Anders Munk-Nielsen

“Yet each disappointment Ted felt in his wife, each incremental deflation, was accompanied by a seizure of guilt; many years ago, he had taken the passion he felt for Susan and folded it in half, so he no longer had a drowning, helpless feeling when he glimpsed her beside him in bed: her ropy arms and soft, generous ass. Then he’d folded it in half again, so when he felt desire for Susan, it no longer brought with it an edgy terror of never being satisfied. Then in half again, so that feeling desire entailed no immediate need to act. Then in half again, so he hardly felt it. His desire was so small in the end that Ted could slip it inside his desk or a pocket and forget about it, and this gave him a feeling of safety and accomplishment, of having dismantled a perilous apparatus that might have crushed them both. Susan was baffled at first, then distraught; she’d hit him twice across the face; she’d run from the house in a thunderstorm and slept at a motel; she’d wrestled Ted to the bedroom floor in a pair of black crotchless underpants. But eventually a sort of amnesia had overtaken Susan; her rebellion and hurt had melted away, deliquesced into a sweet, eternal sunniness that was terrible in the way that life would be terrible, Ted supposed, without death to give it gravitas and shape. He’d presumed at first that her relentless cheer was mocking, another phase in her rebellion, until it came to him that Susan had forgotten how things were between them before Ted began to fold up his desire; she’d forgotten and was happy — had never not been happy — and while all of this bolstered his awe at the gymnastic adaptability of the human mind, it also made him feel that his wife had been brainwashed. By him.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

“The only difference between everybody and nobody is all the shoes”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

“Rubin’s conceptualization of fog happiness helps resolve what appear to be contradictory research findings about the happiness of parents. Ask a young mother to pause from playing with her fifteen-month-old at eleven a.m. and indicate her current happiness level, and her answer will be about the same as when she’s vacuuming at four p.m. Ask that same woman when she’s eighty-five years old what her top three sources of happiness were, and “being a mother” or “caring for my children” will surely make the list. Vacuuming, not so much. Immediate joy and fun in parenting are scattered stars in the great black sky of strain, boredom, and unrelenting responsibility in parenting. But when the joy comes, it comes insisting. And when we take the long view and ascribe meaning to our life’s activities, little else competes for first place with raising our very own human beings.”
― Molly Millwood, To Have and to Hold: Motherhood, Marriage, and the Modern Dilemma

“So many nights, exhausted or just impatient, I have been eager for my children’s bedtime. One kid’s chatter barely registers in my ear because it’s the same chatter I’ve been hearing all day. The other kid’s chain of requests for a sip of water, to be tucked in (again), for another sip of water, to turn the hallway light on, feels like fingernails on a chalkboard. Minutes later, as I peak into their room and see that they have each fallen into slumber, I see all sweetness and splendor in their faces. I want to lie down and hold them close. I wonder what that last bit of chatter was that I tuned out. Whether it was something important about my child’s world. A tiny voice echoes in my head, “can I please have another sip of water?” And I hear it more clearly now as “It makes me feel secure and cared for when you bring it to me.” Their care and wellbeing matter more to me than anything and I feel at a cellular level the honor and joy of being their mom. Now that they’re asleep.”
― Molly Millwood, To Have and to Hold: Motherhood, Marriage, and the Modern Dilemma