Cleopatra and Frankenstein

Why did she feel the need to make everyone, even this waiter, like her? What a thing it must be to be indifferent to indifference

tailspin of social unease

before you can create order, you have to make a mess

Her beauty was a mild source of concern for Frank, stemming from an inchoate sense that every really attractive woman he knew was secretly deeply unhappy.

Her beauty was a mild source of concern for Frank, stemming from an inchoate sense that every really attractive woman he knew was secretly deeply unhappy.

They don’t have to prove themselves all the time to be loved. Because they always were.”

but I could tell she felt safe in that house. She grew up feeling safe and fiercely loved.”

Their whole marriage, she had submitted to other people’s versions of her, retreating into the shape of their desires.

He wanted his mother, not his actual mother, that self-involved drunk, but his real mother, still unfound, the woman who could truly take care of him. He wanted Eleanor.

She loved New York, but it was not her city, she knew that now.