Melissa Bank > Quotes

“Oliver Biddle was who you became if you couldn't find anyone to love except your parents. ”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“It's all about judging," I said. "I'm not sure I'm the judge type. I might be more of the criminal type."

"Judgement is power," he said.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“I saw my life in scale: it was just my life. It was not momentous, and only now did I recognize that it had once seemed so to me; that was while my father was watching.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“Henry unpacked the car and loaded himself up with everything they'd brought, little bags and big ones, a string tote, a knapsack.

As he started up the driveway, his girlfriend said, "Do you have the wine, Hank?"

Whoever Hank was, he had it.”
― 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

“I never expected anyone in my family to change, and especially not my father, who changed first and most profoundly: He died.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“I could bring you up on charges for that."

"What?"

"Work harassment in the sexual place.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“He tells me that he knows Max from freshman year—roughly twenty years—and I remember that a huge number of Oberlin friends are here and ask what bonds them all for life.
He says "No one else will be friends with us.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“There are things that two people say in the middle of the night That don't make sense to a third at breakfast.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“He didn't remember because he'd seen thousands of little fish hundreds of times, and because it didn't mean to him what it had to me.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“Even now, remembering the sound of his voice chastens every word I say.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“We change into our bathing suits, both of us pale like larvae, and then we walk down to the water.”
― Melissa Bank

“Ce Français avec qui je sortais.
- Je l'avais oublié, dit-elle. Comment il s'appelait, déjà ?
- Enfoiré, dis-je.
- Exact.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“New York est la ville où l'on se sent chez soi quand on est de nulle part.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“Unfortunately, we all had to face that I was not the person they wanted me to be.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“Jack knew how to make women fall in love with him, but that didn't exactly qualify him as a guidance counselor.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“After dessert, they invited me to go with them to the arts center for a Russian film with English subtitles.
I said, "I don't like to read during movies," and once Julia laughed it became a joke and made me feel that I was irrepressibly witty. So I went with them.

It was the bleakest movie I'd ever seen; everyone died of heartbreak or starvation or both. At home, Julia threw herself on the sofa in Slavic despair and said, "Please do get me some vodka.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“Once when I visited her, she scuffed around the house in pink pile-lined slippers you'd wear only while waiting for the police to discover you many days dead.”
― Melissa Bank

“In the cab to the station, he told me that when he was growing up he'd see a look of pleasure cross his mother's face and ask what she was thinking; she'd say, I was just thinking of your father. “That's how I want us to be,” Archie said. I smiled. “What?” I said, “I was just thinking of your father.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“She tells me she's been reading a terrible book called "How to Meet and Marry Mr. Right" Their main advice is to play hard to get. Basically it's a guide to manipulation. I say that maybe she should stop reading it. "I know, " she says, only half agreeing. "But it's like I've been trying to catch a fish by swimming around with them. I keep making myself get in the water again. I try different rivers. I change my strokes. But nothing works. Then I find the guide that tells me about fishing poles and bait, and how to cast and what to do when the line gets taut," She stops and thinks. "The depressing part is that you know it will work." I say "I hate fish.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“While Mother hostessed and Girlfriend guested, Younger Sister stood up. When there was a pause in their nicing, I made my mouth move smileward: I’d love to stay and talk, but I have to go shoot some heroin now.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“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 told her I didn’t wear makeup. She said, “That’s a mistake.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

“She looked like someone who was used to having other people wait on her. I wonder what that's like, to never have to worry about filling the silence.”
― Melissa Bank

“You're going to lose him, Jane," Faith said.
"I won't."
"Yes," Faith said. "You will."
"Okay, but I'll lose him my way," I say.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing

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

“She admired how thin and delicate Rebecca was. "Like a long-stemmed rose," she said.
I said, "She's more like a long piece of hair with hair.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“I said, "Is my father dying?"
He looked at me steadily. "We're all dying, Jane.”
― Melissa Bank

“They were a couple in a way that didn't exclude anyone but seemed superior to every other relationship in the room.”
― Melissa Bank, The Wonder Spot

“I tried to avoid Mimi. Her presence seemed to call forth every rejection I’d ever experienced—the teachers who’d looked at me as though I held no promise, the boys who didn’t like me back. Around her, I became fourteen again.”
― Melissa Bank, The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing