Laura Moriarty > Quotes

“That's what spending time with the young can do - it's the big payoff for all the pain. The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend, and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also drag you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“To someone who grows up by the stockyards, that smell just smells like air. You don’t know what a younger person might someday think of you, and whatever stench we still breathe in without noticing.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“I read for the language, not the story.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“Mother Kaufmann had never played any kind of game with her. She was always busy, always getting something done. She got the fire going under the big tub to wash the clothes and sheets; she killed chickens with the clothesline before hanging them by their feet on the hook for plucking; she shoveled manure; she strained milk; she gathered eggs; she washed the strainers and the milk pails; she cooked the meals and canned pears and asparagus; she hauled in water to wash the dishes; she sewed tears in clothing.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“It scared her to think how much her life’s ease and happiness had been granted by chance. Earle could have been killed of course—but even more than that, she could have been born anywhere in the world, and to anyone, she and her loved ones suffering in ways she could barely fathom when she listened to the international news. This”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“Louise? Oh, you would remember. She doesn’t look like anyone else. Her hair is black like Myra’s, but perfectly straight like an Oriental’s, and she wears it in a Buster Brown.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“She would owe this understanding to her time in New York, and even more to Louise. That's what spending time with the young can do--it's the big pay-off for all the pain. The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend, and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also dray you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“Eileen says what they should really do, if they want to be fair about it, is offer a Bible study class for credit, and let us take that instead of sitting an extra hour in study hall, twiddling our so-called opposable thumbs.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Center of Everything

“That's what spending time with the young can do -- it's the big payoff for all the pain. The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend, and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also drag you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“She would owe this understanding to her time in New York, and even more to Louise. That's what spending time with the young can do--it's the big payoff for all the pain. The young can exasperate, of course, and frighten, and condescend and insult, and cut you with their still unrounded edges. But they can also drag you, as you protest and scold and try to pull away, right up to the window of the future, and even push you through.”
― Laura Moriarty

“is where I was born,” he said. “Only that. I am supposed to be where I go.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“pale eyes, and a pointy nose. A gingham bonnet covered her hair. “Hello,” she said to Cora. Both the man and the woman crouched low, their faces level with hers. Cora could not cough or pretend to be slow: one of the agents was right there, watching. The man asked her name, and she told him. He asked her age, and she said she didn’t know, but that she’d just lost her first tooth. Both the man and the woman laughed as if Cora had said something terribly funny, as if she were one of the children singing the Jesus song, trying hard to be cute. She gave them a hard look, but they continued to smile. The man looked at the woman. The”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“understanding that her aunt Cora was not a hateful person, just an old woman with tainted language.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“All these girls had thrown away their corsets, claiming liberation, but apparently, they weren’t supposed to eat.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“with”
― Laura Moriarty, The Center of Everything

“1920’s Fashions from B. Altman & Company (Dover Publications”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“but even more than that, she could have been born anywhere in the world, and to anyone, she and her loved ones suffering in ways she could barely fathom when she listened to the international news.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“Dance was a visualization of divinity, a way for dancers to realize that they were not in their bodies—their bodies were inside of them.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone

“the difference between them and her own child stabbed hard into Leigh’s worried heart.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Rest of Her Life

“She had it cut like that when they moved here years ago. It’s too short and severe, a horrible look, in my opinion, not feminine at all. But even so, I have to say, she’s a very pretty girl. Prettier than her mother.”
― Laura Moriarty, The Chaperone