Suzanne Finnamore quotes:

Irrationally, I think, Will You Marry Me? Four words. I Want a Divorce. Four words. I would like time to count the letters as well, but there is not time.

For most people, I edit. Most people are definitely getting along on the Cliffs Notes.

Yes. THANK YOU. And say hello to Judas Iscariot.

I was steeped in denial, but my body knew.

I travel back in time, falling back into what I know for certain, the historical data I cling to in order to not go mad, not assume I made a suicidal and well-informed error in marrying this man.

I saw my reflection in their eyes, but not the men themselves, not clearly. This preserved the idea that all intelligent and even vaguely attractive men were essentially good. Delusion detest focus and romance provides the veil.

God is great and God is good, Lisa says. But where are the Apache attack helicopters when you need them?

Delusion detests focus and romance provides the veil.

I used to loathe ambivalence; now I adore it. Ambivalence is my new best friend.

Bushwhacked, I examine my hands. Same hands. Rings still there but no longer valid.

They feel life is for the taking, and that everyone deserves happiness no matter what the cost. I must remember these tricks if I ever decide to have my soul surgically removed.

Surprises, I feel now, are primarily a form of violence.

I know one thing about men, Bunny says with finality, leaving the room to check on A. They never die when you want them to.

How do you know? How best to ensure his nervous breakdown? I ask.Keep going, Christian says. Just go on as if nothing has happened. We all hate that.

I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.

A heart can stop beating for a while, one can still live.

He left a bit too easily and with obvious relief. His feet were swift and sure on the muddy path.

I played possum. I did this, as the possum does, out of fear.

The whole world seems tilted, my inner ear displaced by a hole where my spouse used to be.

I want to own this transition, not to simply swallow the shame of it entire. I will push for every little irony.

The abandonment came, and now this shabby bacchanal.

This is much easier than when N left. Our son is unable to grasp and simultaneously turn doorknobs yet. If only this trick could be unlearned by men over thirty, many more families would celebrate Christmas together.

Such silence has an actual sound, the sound of disappearance.

I am not ready to think of him as either insane or evil, to consider in full how I could love and have a child with such a person. I am not ready to think about anything, except ways in which this may still be averted.

I feel angry but not homocidal; this may be unlooked-for progress.

My mind floats like ash. I blame myself most cruelly.

This people know where their husbands are. I would like to vomit. I would like to vomit my soul out.

I have a new mantra, which I chant softly to myself: Oh My God Oh My God.

Someday I will have revenge. I know in advance to keep this to myself, and everyone will be happier. I do understand that I am expected to forgive N and his girlfriend in a timely fashion, and move on to a life of vegetarian cooking and difficult yoga positions and self-realization, and make this so much easier and more pleasant for all concerned.

I love you as the mother of my child: the kiss of death.Mother of His Child: demotion. I am beginning to see this truism: Mothers are not always wives. I have been stripped of a piece of self.

This is much worse than losing a cat. You do not wish the cat dead, for example, after the first two days. You still love the cat and presumably the cat still loves you, or some variation of love that may in fact be dependence and even indifference.

Flannel shirts should be outlawed for ex husbands; I realize this now. Flannel shirts are to women what crotchless panties are to men.

In so many senseless deaths, beauty is to blame.

I review what I know once again, confronting the monolith now alien and almost unconnected to me: my marriage.

I feel incendiary, a wildfire. My spirit licks at the gates of a very elaborate, customized, and distracting emotional Hades.

It had all seemed as inevitable as sunset. Instead it was the beauty of the sun glinting upon the scythe.

What nobody tells you about getting engaged is he asks you and you're delirious for about 2 days and then it tapers. He asks you and you're running around telling grocery clerks and ordering subscriptions to bride magazines and discussing prong settings, and then after 2 days this ebullience passes. And instead of looking ahead you are suddenly struck by everything you are leaving behind.

I know one thing about men," Bunny says with finality, leaving the room to check on A. "They never die when you want them to.

I have a new mantra, which I chant softly to myself: "Oh My God Oh My God.

My mother is a firm believer in the long pause, useful in interrogations, proclamations of truth, and the occasional cutting dead of someone without their knowing it.

I love you as the mother of my child": the kiss of death.Mother of His Child: demotion. I am beginning to see this truism: Mothers are not always wives. I have been stripped of a piece of self.

How do you know? How best to ensure his nervous breakdown?" I ask."Keep going," Christian says. "Just go on as if nothing has happened. We all hate that.

God is great and God is good," Lisa says. "But where are the Apache attack helicopters when you need them?