A Good Neighborhood Quotes

“How unfair that the past was irretrievable and yet impossible to leave behind.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Why couldn't we see one another as simply human and pull together, for goodness' sake? The planet was dying while people fought over things like who was most American-or who was American at all.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Some of us wondered what Juniper might think about there being no equivalent pledge or ceremony or standard for young men.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Once he'd asked his mom, "Why doesn't half white equal white the way half black equals black?" Her answer, i.e., the history of the one-drop rule, etc., made sense but didn't satisfy him. Factually he was just as white as he was black.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“We’ll say no one can be known by only what’s visible. We’ll say most of us hide what troubles and confuses us, displaying instead the facets we hope others will approve of, the parts we hope others will like.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“In her experience, some men—well-off white men in particular—were so accustomed to their authority and privilege that they perceived it as a right.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“It was so hard to navigate the world these days. Ignorance was bliss, particularly when you found yourself amid a group of informed people who were disgusted by what you’d inadvertently done but too polite to call you out for it.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Some of us thought, Why should having sex be regarded as an act of impurity? What did impure even mean? What was pure, and why was it so desirable for a girl to be that, while boys could be however they liked?”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Tree's are life. Not just my life", she would add, since her fields were forests and ecology, "but life period. They literally make oxygen. We need to keep at least seven trees for every human the planet, or else people are going to start suffocating. Think of that.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Before we depict the first encounter between our story’s other central players, we need to show the wider setting in which this slow tragedy unfolded. As our resident English professor would remind us, place, especially in stories of the South, is as much a character as any human, and inseparable from—in this case even necessary to—the plot.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“It’s trite to say appearances can be deceiving, so we won’t say that. We’ll say no one can be known by only what’s visible. We’ll say most of us hide what troubles and confuses us, displaying instead the facets we hope others will approve of, the parts we hope others will like.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Start here, please, in communion with one another despite our differences, recognizing that without start there is no end.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Dostoyevsky said, What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to live. Unable, meaning being denied, being thwarted. Those of us who've had love denied-rral love, not a passing list whim, not a false infatuation based on some imagined connection that in most cases is unrequited- we fellow travelers through hell know Dostoyevskt told it true”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“here, please, in communion with one another despite our differences, recognizing that without start there is no end.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Some people were born into privilege and had everything handed to them; some were born white trash and had to hustle to get even a thousandth of what the privileged had.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“A big surprise that was no surprise at all. If you are a black person in the United States, you live each day with the knowledge that this scene or one very much like it may be in your future. You needn’t have done anything illegal or have broken any rule.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Not one of us knows what’s in our future with any certainty.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“took our ribbing in the spirit with which it was given: affection,”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“love, not a passing lusty whim, not a false infatuation based on some imagined connection that in most cases is unrequited—we fellow travelers through hell know Dostoyevsky told it true.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Why couldn’t we see one another as simply human and pull together, for goodness’ sake? The planet was dying while people fought over things like who was most American—or who was American at all.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Demonstrate your humanity and integrity the way Dr. and Mrs. King had always done, the way John Lewis still did.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“old one—not even a third of an acre, when before she’d had three. Where was she supposed to go when she needed to get away but wasn’t allowed to leave?”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“the same, before Valerie took”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Carpe fucking diem while you can.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Valerie understood that while her son did and always would hold her heart in his hands, the fact of being a parent was that her son’s heart was and must be reserved for someone else.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“But I have found that not only am I more effective when I set aside the emotional aspects of a situation, I sleep better, too.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Who was she to assert that in matters of his heart, she knew best? Valerie understood that while her son did and always would hold her heart in his hands, the fact of being a parent was that her son's heart was and must be reserved for someone else”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“Dostoyevsky said, What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love. Unable, meaning being denied, being thwarted. Those of us who’ve had love denied—real love, not a passing lusty whim, not a false infatuation based on some imagined connection that in most cases is unrequited—we fellow travelers through hell know Dostoyevsky told it true.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood

“How beautiful he was. How well formed. She’d thought this the first time she’d seen him and felt it even more acutely now.”
― Therese Anne Fowler, A Good Neighborhood