Finished Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett last week. What a breathtaking, elegiac testament to a once-in-a-lifetime friendship. I was deeply moved. A few passages really struck me:
“It’s true,” she said, leaning her head on my shoulder. “It’s your blessing and your curse. You’re always going to be fine.”
“We were all better off living in the worlds inside our heads.”
“Lucy and I were one another’s history.”
“Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and then she showed up speaking English and suddenly I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadn’t even realized was gone. With Lucy, I was a native speaker.”
“History is strangely incomprehensible when you’re standing in the middle of it.”
“Now I know I was simply not cut out for life without her. I am living that life now, and I would not choose it.”