Kathie

“He thinks each day will be better than the next; he is wrong. He awakens the next morning and thinks it again; he is wrong. He thinks we are free to become our true selves, that we are free to love as we choose. A mindset so UnitedStatesian, you could serve it with ketchup. But, friends, you cannot live on ketchup.”
― Andrew Sean Greer, Less Is Lost

“All he wanted was to be young together and in love. Too much to ask? “Nobody gets that,” she would say. “Nobody. Your problem is you’re convinced you have a type.” He would say of course he had a type, and she would say: “Give that up. Find someone who treats you decently.”
― Andrew Sean Greer, Less Is Lost

“America, how’s your marriage? Your two-hundred-fifty-year-old promise to stay together in sickness and in health? First thirteen states, then more and more, until fifty of you had taken the vow. Like so many marriages, I know, it was not for love; I know it was for tax reasons, but soon you all found yourselves financially entwined, with shared debts and land purchases and grandiose visions of the future, yet somehow, from the beginning, essentially at odds. Ancient grudges. That split you had—that still stings, doesn’t it? Who betrayed whom, in the end? I hear you tried getting sober. That didn’t last, did it? So how’s it going, America? Do you ever dream of each being on your own again? Never having to be part of someone else’s family squabble? Never having to share a penny? Never having to bear with someone else’s gun hobby, or car obsession, or nutrition craze? Tell me honestly, because I have contemplated marriage and wonder: If it can’t work for you, can it work for any of us?”
― Andrew Sean Greer, Less Is Lost

“He is not the best. But he is the best I ever had.”
― Andrew Sean Greer, Less Is Lost