The Sixteenth of June Quotes

“We all spin stories. That's what we do. We want people to see certain things about us and not others. What matters is whether you let others in to the truest story, the one that's the hardest to tell.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“He cannot bear the thought of being a stereotype.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“How are you holding up?' Stephen had asked in the parking lot, and it had come as a relief. Because even if you don't know the answer, Nora thinks, leaving the foyer, it is nice to be asked.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“A book is a place to lose yourself and then find yourself once more. A book draws you into its world like a charming host. It should not make you regret accepting its invitation.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“Stephen's work does not call out to him in this way. It does not speak to him of secrets and stories. He wonders about the woman. He imagines a divorce, something that makes her look away rather than stroke her daughter's hair. To know more about her would be to have some riddle solved. An unwritten novel is in each of us, Woolf would say.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“It's a book in which one finds everything,' Stuart continues sagely. 'I cannot tell you the number of times I've opened its pages and found a line, some passing thought--the most mundane detail--speaking directly to my set of circumstances! One finds it magically relevant, as though Joyce anticipates all. It is the great repository of everything.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“June is gazing at Michael with a glow about her face, a well of feeling for her husband. Leo and Stephen are also looking at their father, Leo's expression sympathetic, nearly teary. The three of them as they look at Michael are like magnets, the ties drawing each one to him nearly visible. This is what family means, Nora thinks.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“These were the ridiculous tales of being twenty-two and twenty-five, of being in that happy, malleable phase of postcollege life before everything set in the gray cement of adulthood.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“How do you get someone back if you don't know where she's gone?”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“The point is not to understand technology or even to enjoy it. The point is to adapt.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June

“There is never any acknowledgment that women hold a power men lack, the greatest power for happiness on earth, their insides magically rearranging themselves to incubate a human.”
― Maya Lang, The Sixteenth of June