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Lily King

Lily King Books

Novelist

Euphoria

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“Nearly every guy I've dated believed they should already be famous, believed that greatness was their destiny and they were already behind schedule. An early moment of intimacy often involved a confession of this sort: a childhood vision, teacher's prophecy, a genius IQ. At first, with my boyfriend in college, I believed it, too. Later, I thought I was just choosing delusional men. Now I understand it's how boys are raised to think, how they are lured into adulthood. I've met ambitious women, driven women, but no woman has ever told me that greatness was her destiny.”

MenWomenDestinyGreatnessFameGloryGenderGender Roles
Book:Writers & Lovers
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“Nearly every guy I've dated believed they should already be famous, believed that greatness was their destiny and they were already behind schedule. An early moment of intimacy often involved a confession of this sort: a childhood vision, a teacher's prophecy, a genius IQ. At first, with my boyfriend in college, I believed it, too. Later, I thought I was just choosing delusional men. Now I understand it's how boys are raised to think, how they are lured into adulthood. I've met ambitious women, driven women, but no woman has ever told me that greatness was her destiny.”

MenWomenAmbition
Book:Writers & Lovers
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“The geese are all asleep. A few tip their heads out from under their wings as we approach. I open the cookie tin and a few more sway slowly over to us. It’s cold, and Silas has wrapped the green blanket around me so I feel like I have wings, too. I shake the tin and walk backward in a circle around them. The ground is warmer than the air and warmer still where the geese have been sleeping. The ashes fall out evenly onto the grass. They peck at the silver flakes, their beaks moving like machines, faster than the eyes can register. More join them, they don't fight, there is enough to go around. I hold the blanket open for Silas and he slips beside me and pulls it closed. "Is this weird?" "Yeah," he says. He puts his lips in my hair. "I love weird." They peck and naw for a long time. There's not much left when they are done. They putter around for a while on their wide rubber feet, their necks look made of fur not feathers. A few are trying to sleep, curtsying to the ground and burying their heads between the folded wings on their backs. I’ll miss them when they take flight. I won’t be there. Their fast excited chatter, their wings finally spread wide, their feet tucking in behind them. Wheels up. I’ll miss it. I’ll be in class or at my desk or in bed when they cut across the sky. "I want them to go right now." "I know," Silas says. "They'll go when they're ready." A book in the library said that some Canadian Geese may travel as far as Jalisco, Mexico. My mother will like that. The long, exhilirating trip, the foreign landing. But others, the book said, will stay where they are for the winter. Those geese are already home.”

InspirationalDeath Of A Loved One
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“I love these geese. They make my chest tight and full and help me believe that things will be all right again, that I will pass through this time as I have passed through other times, that the vast and threatening blank ahead of me is a mere specter, that life is lighter and more playful than I’m giving it credit for. But right on the heels of that feeling, that suspicion that all is not yet lost, comes the urge to tell my mother, tell her that I am okay today, that I have felt something close to happiness, that I might still be capable of feeling happy. She will want to know that. But I can't tell her. That's the wall I always slam into on a good morning like this. My mother will be worrying about me, and I can't tell her that I'm okay. The geese don't care that I'm crying again. They're used to it.”

HappinessDeathHopeLossGriefOptimismMourningMothersGeeseDeath Of A Mother
Book:Writers & Lovers
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“Vi stretar på i motvinden över den fasta sanden fram till strandkanten. Caleb öppnar kakburken och tar en näve av det silvriga gruset där inuti. Vinden blåser för kraftigt utifrån vattnet för att vi ska kunna kasta i det, så han släpper ner de grövre bitarna i en liten våg som letar sig upp mot våra skor. Jag tillåter inte mig själv att tro att det är hon. Jag tillåter inte mig själv att tro att min mammas kropp - hennes hår, hennes leende, de två stämbanden som alstrade ljudet av hennes röst, hennes hjärta, hennes snygga rumpa, hennes lena ben, hennes tår som hördes när hon gick - har bränts upp till det här gruset i min hand.”

Sorg
Book:Writers & Lovers
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“You don't realize how language actually interferes with communication until you don't have it, how it gets in the way like an overdominant sense. You have to pay much more attention to everything else when you can't understand the words. Once comprehension comes, so much else falls away. You then rely on their words, and words aren't always the most reliable thing.”

WayFallLanguageRealizingPayAttentionCommunicationRelyInterfereComprehension
Book:Euphoria
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“I didn't major in anthropology in college, but I do feel I had an education in different cultures very early on. My parents divorced when I was eleven, and my father immediately married a woman with three children and was with her for five years. When they got divorced, he immediately married a woman with four children. In the meantime, my mother married a man who had seven children. So I was going from one family to another between the ages of eleven and eighteen.”

MenFeelsYearsChildrenDifferentAgeMotherCultureThreeFatherParentFiveFourCollegeMarriedMajorsOur ChildrenSevenFive YearsDivorcedElevenAnthropologyEighteenDifferent Cultures
Author:Lily King
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