Melissa Bank > Quotes

“Today was the first day of the rest of my life. It was okay, I think the second day of the rest of my life will be better”
― Melissa Bank

“..Well, old dear, I guess love is the real suspension of disbelief.”
― Melissa Banks, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“I realized I was waiting for his permission to leave”
― Melissa Banks, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“It occurred to me that the quiet in the suburbs had nothing to do with peace.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“By late August, I’m on my second sublet, and I’ve been working as a copywriter long enough to know I’m not good at it. I seem to be reliving the life I had when I was twenty-two, but I’m about to run twenty-eight, which feels like the opposite of twenty-two.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“But then you hear that he can't hear you, you see that he can't see you. You are not here - and you haven't died yet. You see yourself through his eyes, as The Generic Woman, the skirted symbol on the ladies' room door.
When he says, "I love you, honey," you realize that he never call you by your name.
You will say good-bye for all the right reasons. You're tired of living in wait for his apocalypse. You have your own fight on your hands, and though it's no bigger or noble than his, it will require all your energy.
It's you who has to hold on to earth. You have to tighten your grip - which means letting go of him.”
― Melissa Banks, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“You try to plan your life, but that's not how it works.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“Happiness is just a dog sunning itself on a rock. We're not put on this earth to be happy. We're here to experience great things.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“He never told me that he loved me."
"Some men don't," she says. "Some men say it all the time and don't mean it."
I recognize myself in the latter category, not with Demetri but with one of his predecessors. I sometimes said "I love you" to Josh because I was afraid I didn't; toward the end, I hardly said it at all, and when I did I meant, I WISH I LOVED YOU.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“I said, "What's your goal in life?" and winced at how corny and earnest I sounded.
He looked away. He thought. "I guess I'm trying to become a better man than the one I'm hardwired to be.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“I tried to go back and talk about what I did know. I told her about one girl he'd brought home from Cornell; I'd asked if she was his girlfriend, and he's said, "When you define something, you limit it.”
― Melissa Banks, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“Listen," I say, "funny is the best thing I am."
Faith says, "Making jokes is your way of saying 'Do you love me?' and when someone laughs you think they've said yes.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“You are making it harder than it has to be," she says.

I say, "And should I forgive him because it would be easier?"

"You don't nee a reason to forgive," she says. "If you want to go on with someone, that is what you do.”
― Melissa Banks, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“He could do whatever he wanted. My father was the same way: a houseful of guests, and my mother's duty was to provide food, drink, fun, and conversation, while my father's was to nap or read.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“While home is the place where you can relax and be yourself, this doesn’t mean that you can take advantage of the love and affection other members of your family have for you.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“Later, lying in bed, I wonder if Dena knows about her father. I decide that she probably does, and I imagine how I would feel if I knew that my father was unfaithful to my mother.
Then I remember Richard, and I think that marriage might not mean much to Dena. I can't really blame her: She learned about marriage from her parents, just as I did from mine. For all I know, sleeping with Richard is just Dena's way of trying not to be her mother.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“He went to the bar and stood there a while. But he was in the way of people getting their drinks. He moved to the edge of the crowd and just watched. Suddenly it seemed, he was drunk, in a suit that didn't fit, at a party where he didn't know anyone, and he was standing alone.”
― Melissa Banks, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“When I could talk, I said, "I don't know what I did wrong."
Dena sighed, "You care too much.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“The one I love the most is about two mayflies on a date; they watch a nature documentary about themselves and discover their life span is only one day long ― after mating, they'll die.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“I want him to tell my why, but he doesn't say anything. It seems possible that Matthew is gay and possible that he isn't; possible that he is just a little more afraid than the rest of us and possible that he is much more; it even seems possible that what he has with Dena is bigger or deeper or more important than anything else is to him.
I don't know, But i no longer believe, as I did that last afternoon at the lake, that my many, many flaws are what prevented Matthew from wanting a life with me. It seems more likely that it is his flaw that he can't or won't love anyone-- and that he is indiscriminate in his unlove.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“He's losing weight," I say. "He doesn't sleep anymore." It occurs to me that this is how cults weaken the will of initiates.
Robert says, "It sounds to me like he's in love," and adds that the world's most coveted state is characterized by unrelieved insecurity and almost constant pain.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“Archie asked if I'd told my parents about him, and I said I hadn't. "How much longer are you going to keep me in the closet?" he said. "It's dark in here. And I keep stepping on your shoes.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“In a cab home from a jazz club, he said, “You act like I just want to sleep with you.” He said, “I want to everything with you.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“I remembered my father's speech about what Jack was capable of and wasn't; he'd said, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW MUCH JACK LOVES YOU. I thought about all the girls he'd stopped loving; it was like he had a timer, and at a certain point it buzzed.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“when i felt bobby staring at me, i looked up. our eyes met, and he held my gaze; he held my gaze like he was holding me, and i held him as though holding him. then he looked away, he was gone and it was over - a one-minute stand. ”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“He wants me to boss you around."

"We'll pick up a pair of stilettos on the way home," he said.

I said, "I need to go back to Philiadelphia.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“But you also find that you're stronger than you've ever been. You're clear. Your morality is at optimal distance, not up so close that it obscures everything else, but close enough to give you depth perception. Previously, it has taken you weeks, months, or even years to discover the meaning of an experience. Now its instantaneous.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“You're correcting my grammar now?
Yes, I'm helping you to be better. And I expect the same from you.
What if I don't want to be better?'
Then you'll be just a petulant, infinitive-splitting eavesdropper.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“It reminded me of how I’d felt applying to college. Night after night, I sat with my father in his study while he read aloud from Baron’s. He’d read the name of the college, the number of men and the number of women, and a description in guidebook prose; then he’d say, ‘How does that sound?’ and I’d think, Sounds just like the last one.
It took me a few nights to realize that my father was reading only the colleges that I had some chance of getting into – not Brown but Bowling Green; not Wesleyan but Ohio Wesleyan; not Williams or Smith, but William Smith. Until that moment, it hadn’t occurred to me that my grades and test scores over the years were anything more than individual humiliations; I hadn’t realized that one day all of them would add up and count against me.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“I have acute pancreatitis."
"I thought it was just average looking.”
― Melissa Bank