They get on with it. Even after imagining all this fineness—the girls (check), Edward (check)—I bawled, stuck on the awful thought that the reason I’d ended up in Ellen Tanner’s house, the reason no one had hired me as a waitress or
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“In Jefferson’s day, it took six weeks to move information from the Mississippi River to Washington, D.C. In Lincoln’s, information moved over the same route by telegraph all but instantaneously.”
― Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
― Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West

“What is it about a living mother that makes her so hard to see, to feel, to want, to love, to like? What a colossal waste that we can only fully appreciate certain riches—clean clothes, hot showers, good health, mothers—in their absence.”
― Glitter and Glue
― Glitter and Glue

“There was something so marvelously innocent, so irretrievably lost, about the world back then. You could see it in the easy, confident gait and sun-drenched smiles of the vacationers in every photograph. These people were happy. I don’t mean they were happy. They were happy. They were living at a good time in a lucky country and they knew it. They had good jobs, good homes, good families, good prospects, good vacations in cheerful, sunny places.”
― In a Sunburned Country
― In a Sunburned Country

“The Americans of 1801 had more gadgets, better weapons, a superior knowledge of geography, and other advantages over the ancients, but they could not move goods or themselves or information by land or water any faster than had the Greeks and Romans.”
― Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
― Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West

“I live within my means and worship my girlfriends, especially the ones who play cards and rag me about keeping the thermostat set too low. I don’t long for other mothers anymore; I don’t even wonder about them. I was meant to be her daughter, and I consider it a damn good thing that she, of all people, was the principal agent in my development.”
― Glitter and Glue
― Glitter and Glue
Alex’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Alex’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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