Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives
Mary Laura Philpott
Top 10 Best Quotes
“As far as I can tell, the uncertain part is every second we’re alive, until the last.”
“am a person who trusts data and loves information and feels soothed by sorting things. I’m a person who sees cause for delight everywhere but can’t stop noticing danger everywhere, too, and who often struggles to reconcile the two. I’m a person who takes every personality test despite knowing her own personality very well, and then retakes them until she gets the label she wants.”
“When you’re an adult who thinks your own churning mind is what keeps everything safe, it’s called anxious.)”
“When we begin things, we can’t possibly know how they will end. Everything we plan is built on guesses and hopes, never on certainty. It’s a wonder anybody ever starts anything.”
“We take care of who we can and what we can, near and far, because that’s the job. That is life. It’s true: There will always be threats lurking under the water where we play, danger hiding in the attic and rolling down the street on heavy wheels, unexpected explosions in our brains and our hearts and the sky. There will always be bombs, and we will never be able to save everyone we care about. To know that and to try anyway is to be fully alive. The closest thing to shelter we can offer one another is love, as deep and wide and in as many forms as we can give it.”
“Sometimes I don’t know how any of us go on. Sometimes I fear there’s no way our species will survive our own self-destructive choices. Sometimes I feel so gut punched by the backward deal of the universe—that if you’re really lucky, you get people in your life to love, and then, over time, they will all either leave you or die—that I am angry at life. Actually, not sometimes. Always. I always feel that way. I don’t always actively think about it, but it’s in there. At the same time, I am always looking for some gratitude, warmth, or hope. I often have to really search for it, but when I see something that makes me feel joy—even just a tiny odd hardly anything—you’re damn right I applaud it. Way to go, adorable cat on a leash! Thank you, server who brought my hot pizza! Kudos, writers of a TV show that made me laugh! Hallelujah, sunshine after a week of storms! Yay for a good hair day, yippee for hot coffee, huzzah for an outfit that puts bounce in my step. If I can scrape up some evidence of a thing made beautifully or a gesture made kindly, then I can believe, for a few seconds, that this world is careful and kind. And if I can believe that, I can believe it is safe to let the people I love walk around out there. It’s my own attempt at foresparkling, seeking out hints of good, even planting them myself, so I can believe there’s more good to come. It might all be superstition, just mental magic, but why not try?”
“Loving a teenager is just as emotionally intoxicating as loving a baby. Maybe even more.”
“I used to think babyhood was the neediest stage of life, but teenagers need their parents just as much—maybe even more. A baby needs a snuggle, some eye contact, a song. A teenager needs a trusted adult to talk things out with when they or a friend gets into a scary situation.”
“Better to believe the world is at least half-full of decent intentions than to focus on how it’s also half-full of assholes.”
“walked through the airport to the security line, dragging my bag like a big blue dog on a leash. The travelers ahead of me in line stripped off their shoes, belts, hats, jackets, and watches. Everyone peeled off their armor to expose their soft inner layers, to prove they were harmless and safe to fly.”
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