I hope you’re getting what you want from this life, too.”

She sometimes felt that her entire life was either following orders from those above her in station, or giving them to those below her.

To be a human is complex, and often painful; to be an animal is comfortingly simple and good.

But nobody asked her, and so she kept these wishes quiet, writing them only in journals, summoning them to the forefront of her mind whenever a birthday or a well or a star presented her with a formal opportunity to make them known to the universe.

the phrase was at once so cruel and so poetic that it clicked into place around her like a harness.

Judy’s mother, who has been silent this whole time, suddenly takes Judy’s cup from her. Pours her more tea. She is a visitor in their home, now; a guest. The realization makes Judy feel proud and sorrowful at the same time.

Between them was an electrical current, a buzzing sensation making its way back and forth between their bodies. Louise could feel it. She was certain without knowing why that T.J. could feel it too. They were animals, Louise thought—and it almost made her laugh. Humans were animals. They had the same instincts, the same ability to communicate benea

“The best part of being married to George Barlow for a decade was learning that it’s all right not to do everything that’s expected of you all of the time. This is a notion that has been positively liberating for me. The way we were raised—the way our parents raised us, I mean—it trained us to think it’s our job to be absolutely correct in everythi

Rich people, thought Judy—she thought this then, and she thinks it now—generally become most enraged when they sense they’re about to be held accountable for their wrongs.