
Beautyland: A Novel

I quantum miss you. I miss you in the deeper level of reality where distance has no meaning.
Marie-Helene Bertino • Beautyland: A Novel
Yet. Grief is a bad mirror. It shows you manipulated images of yourself, your will, and the future. It cannot show you how the small work you do will add up to yourself. Inch by inch.
Marie-Helene Bertino • Beautyland: A Novel
Loneliness is a composite feeling: ironically unable to exist alone. It can contain anger, hunger, fear, jealousy.
Marie-Helene Bertino • Beautyland: A Novel
Human life is quick. I do not mean: Life is short. I mean: The reason we feel like certain significant days happened only yesterday is because they did. Many of us have bodies that age preposterously out of proportion with how young we are. It’s like aging in theater time. We’re all seven-year-olds hired to play the parts of adults. A decade is not
... See moreMarie-Helene Bertino • Beautyland: A Novel
Every human dies. But the bad news is that every day they act like they don’t know they’re alive. They lie or behave inconsiderately or cheat. Each one is a little death. Humans experience many little deaths before the final one.
Marie-Helene Bertino • Beautyland: A Novel
Human beings design irrigation systems that carry water billions of miles but cannot invent an ironing board that opens without sounding like a metal seizure.
Marie-Helene Bertino • Beautyland: A Novel
People with money list what they did without. Poor people list what they had.
Marie-Helene Bertino • Beautyland: A Novel
I love you is a can of soda that comes free with every meal. Yet every day humans suffer from lack of hearing it.
Marie-Helene Bertino • Beautyland: A Novel
The ego of the human male is by far the most dangerous aspect of human society. THIS HAS BEEN WELL-DOCUMENTED.