Abbi Waxman Books

“I filled my mouth with spaghetti and thanked God for the Italians. Spaghetti, pizza, ice cream. If they weren't so busy making love and whizzing around on Vespas, they'd probably rule the world.”

Source: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Appreciate Italian Food

“Being with you is as good as being alone.”

Source: The Garden of Small Beginnings

Love Romance

“Normally men don't really listen all that well. You can mention that you like apricots, or The Cure, or kittens, and it just goes out of their heads the minute it's out of your mouth. I personally seize on these clues about people. For example, I know that Sasha loves the smell of violets, and that Rose enjoys novels of a bodice-ripping nature and walks for exercise and has a Siamese cat called Dr. Oodles, but if I'd asked Dan what his best friend had studied at college- where they were roommates- he would have no idea. Anyway, Edward was apparently different, because he'd sent me a gorgeous bouquet of roses that filled the room with an intense, sweetly lemony, rosy smell that was mind-blowing. The roses themselves were a rich cream and stuffed with petals that made them look like roses in paintings. Sasha was looking at me. "Well, you must have done something pretty amazing last night. I've been sketching these since I got in. They're the most gorgeous Madame Hardys I've seen in a long time." I could see she had also been getting her shit together; there were open cartons on her desk, and she'd brought her portfolio to the office. "Aren't they roses?" I was bending down, sniffing deeply. I looked for a card. Sasha laughed. "The name of the rose is Madame Hardy. It's a damask rose, and one of the most famous old roses available these days. Someone knows their flowers.”

Source: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Roses Perfect Man Thoughtfulness Damask Madame Hardy

“Beauty always fades, but it lasts so much longer if you lay a thick layer of intelligence and integrity underneath it.”

Source: The Garden of Small Beginnings

Beauty Integrity Intelligence

“If you're not scared, you're not brave.”

Source: I Was Told It Would Get Easier

Life Lessons

“It's not that I'm not occasionally interested in romance, or even just sex. It's just that the chances of my interest coinciding with opportunity and, more important, physical energy are very remote." Rachel frowned. "You guys make it very hard for us single women to look forward to having kids." Angie and I spoke in unison. "Good.”

Source: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Children Sex Single Parenting Sucks Cockblock

“It also meant she thought of books as medication and sanctuary and the source of all good things. Nothing yet had proven her wrong.”

Source: The Garden of Small Beginnings

Reading Books

“Being surrounded by books was the closest she'd ever gotten to feeling like the member of a gang. The books had her back, and the nonfiction, at least, was ready to fight if necessary.”

Source: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Books

“Nina had looked around and realized she would never run out of things to read, and that certainty filled her with peace and satisfaction. It didn't matter what hit the fan; as long as there were unread books in the world, she would be fine.”

Source: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Reading Books

“People were... exhausting. They made her anxious. Leaving her apartment every morning was the turning over of a giant hourglass, the mental energy she’d stored up overnight eroding grain by grain. She refueled during the day by grabbing moments of solitude and sometimes felt her life was a long-distance swim between islands of silence.”

Source: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Solitude Introverts

“My dad managed to convey the importance of working hard in school using a subtle blend of emotional blackmail (I’m paying for the best high school in New York, don’t make me regret it) and fear (if you don’t work hard now you won’t get into a good college and you won’t get a good job and you won’t meet a nice man and you’ll end your life filled with regret and fast food). It was incredibly effective.”

Source: The Bookish Life of Nina Hill

Life College Parents Parents And Children

“The parents have all been posting up a storm, of course. At one point the previous day we'd all compared embarrassing "Can you believe she's looking at colleges?/tearful emoji" posts, to which all their friends added shocked faces and commented on the passage of time, yawn. Some of them went for the comparison post (Here's a picture of little Wanda in her Dorothy costume at four, here she is at sixteen; Oh my god I feel so old because this rite of passage is about me, not the one actually passaging) ...”

Source: I Was Told It Would Get Easier

College Parents Rite Of Passage

“Regret is one of those emotions that outpunches reality: Even if you 100 percent could not have done things differently, it still pops up and takes a jab.”

Source: I Was Told It Would Get Easier

Life Feelings Regret

“I told them dinner was ready and went to the living room, where Rachel and Richard were hiding out. "You realize, I suppose, that both your names begin with the same letter." I poured them a glass of wine. Each. I'm generous that way. Richard grinned. "Yes, we noticed that early on. We also noticed that if we have a child and give him or her a name that also begins with R that we can say we have the three Rs covered." "Wow, and maybe you can all have matching propeller beanies." I was covering the fact I was suddenly excited at the thought of my sister having children. I had accepted it was never going to happen, and it was fine, but a baby is a baby, am I right? Rachel shrugged. "Why not? How about Rapunzel, or Requiem, or Rumpelstiltskin?" "Or Random, Rorschach, or Ritalin." Richard liked this game. "You could go techy and call them RAM or ROM." "Or medical and call them Rheumatism or Rabies or Rubella.”

Source: I Was Told It Would Get Easier

Names Letter R

“First of all, Mr. Cheating Bastard, this is no time to be insulting my car-care abilities, and secondly, she doesn't want to talk to you." He hung his head. "It is true, I have been a bad husband, a stupid man, and a careless friend, but I love my wife and I must talk to her." He really looked dreadful, which was satisfying. I shook my head. "Did you just arrive?" He nodded. "Then you haven't unpacked yet, which will save you some time. Go back to Italy, Berto, back to your little girlfriend." "She is gone. It is over." I switched over to disgusted frown. "Well. Maggie is not a consolation prize, shithead. She's the trophy, the Pulitzer, the Nobel. The fact that your girlfriend dumped you means nothing. Go home.”

Source: The Garden of Small Beginnings

Catharsis Standing Up For Others

“Berto." Voice like ice. "Maggie, cara mia!" Voice like fire. He leapt forward to embrace her, but she held up her hand, her face grave. I noticed she'd freshened her lipstick, though. No dummy, that one. "Back off! I am not going to forgive you, so don't fritter your charm. You broke my heart and sent me flying home like a kicked dog." Maggie was just warming up. "I fled my home, my work, my friends. Every single person we know, our colleagues, our neighbors, knew I had been thrown over for a younger woman and pitied me. I am not to be pitied, Berto. I am a proud and beautiful woman, and I am the one who should be pitying you. But I don't pity you, because you made your own bed. Now go back to Italy and lie in it. Alone.”

Source: The Garden of Small Beginnings

Justification Catharsis Standing Up For Yourself

“Goodness," said my mother. "This is a tight fit. If you girls end up keeping these men longer than usual, we'll need to get a bigger table." I let it go, but Rachel has more energy than me. "Are all relationships just opportunities for home furnishings, Mom?" Mom shrugged. "Mostly, Rachel. Yours don't usually last long enough for furniture, though, do they?" She smiled at Richard, as if that made up for what she'd just said. "Maybe you're a keeper, though, Dick." "Or maybe I'm just a dick," he shot back, "but hopefully I'm a keeper.”

Source: The Garden of Small Beginnings

Dick Bitchy Hot Takes Shots Fired

“I let Annabel show me how to do it, and together we planted the tomatoes. Once I'd done one or two, I discovered that I liked it, and that furthermore tomato plants smelled good. Not a pretty smell, but an interesting one, peppery and green. I could smell it on my hands, and in the sunny air.”

Source: The Garden of Small Beginnings

Tomatoes Earthy Aromatherapy Gardening As Therapy

“There was loads of food set up on a large picnic table just outside the kitchen door. Potato salad with green beans. Sautéed squash with onions and garlic. Tomatoes on their own, or stuffed with cream cheese, or with rice and peppers. Bowls of salad, dressed and undressed. Fresh bread. Berry pie, berry cobbler, berries and cream. Pretty much everything had been grown by the class, and it was enormously satisfying to eat it all.”

Source: The Garden of Small Beginnings

Garden Vegetables Fruits Salads Picnic Natural Foods

“Gene had already cleared the soil, or had someone do it for him, who knows, and brought in a load of plants and flowers, which were sitting around in their pots. The colors were all over the place, no great scheme there, but he'd gone for scent in a big way. I only recognized a few of the flowers, but they all smelled wonderful. Lisa ticked them off for me, her mouth full of pepperoni. "Jasmine, freesia, lavender, sweet peas, alyssum, night-scented stock, scented phlox, clematis of course, and some fancy tuberose." She looked over at Gene. "You picked well. These should give her fragrance for most of the year, in turns. And some nice evening scents, too.”

Source: The Garden of Small Beginnings

Flowers Scents Fragrances

“In many ways, turnips are the unsung heroes of the root crop universe. They don't have the ad budget potatoes have, or the glamorous appearance of carrots, but they shouldn't be underestimated. They're high in vitamins and minerals, low in sugar, and taste delicious roasted, caramelized, or mashed with a pound of butter. Pliny the Elder considered the turnip the most important vegetable of his day, because "its utility surpasses that of any other plant's." Say what you want about Pliny the Elder... he was a man who knew his vegetables.”

Source: The Garden of Small Beginnings

Root Turnips Vegetable Nutritious Pliny

“And, of course, Dr. Bloem is one of the leading authorities on humus, internationally." "The spread?" The eagle-looking guy was lost. "I think of it more as a dip," interjected Rachel. "Humus is a term for one of the major components of soil." The tight-haired young woman spoke clearly, shutting us all up. "Basically, it's decomposed matter. Leaves, animal remains, broken-down bark, that kind of thing." Frances chimed in, "It's what everything becomes, eventually." Rachel couldn't be stopped. "And it's yummy on a pita chip.”

Source: The Garden of Small Beginnings

Decomposition Soil For Growth Humus