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Book: Middlesex
Quotes of Book: Middlesex

Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. I can't just sit back and watch from a distance anymore. From here on in, everything I'll tell you is colored by the subjective experience of being part of events. Here's where my story splits, divides, undergoes meiosis. Already the world feels heavier, now I'm a part of it. I'm talking about bandages and sopped cotton, the smell of mildew in movie theaters, and of all the lousy cats and their stinking litter boxes, of rain on city streets when the dust comes up and the old Italian men take their folding chairs inside. Up until now it hasn't been my world. Not my America. But here we are, at last.
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Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
Les émotions, d'après mon expérience, ne sont pas recouvertes par de simples mots. Je ne crois pas en la « tristesse », la « joie », ou le « regret ». Peut-être la meilleure preuve de la nature patriarcale du langage est le fait qu'il simplifie les sentiments. J'aimerais avoir à ma disposition des émotions hybrides compliquées, des constructions germaniques comme, par exemple : « Le bonheur qui accompagne le désastre. » Ou : « La déception de coucher avec son fantasme. » J'aimerais montrer comment « La conscience de la mort suscitée par des parents vieillissants » est liée à « La haine des miroirs qui commence à l'âge mûr ». J'aimerais avoir un mot pour « La tristesse inspirée par les mauvais restaurants » comme pour « L'excitation d'entrer dans une chambre avec minibar ». Je n'ai jamais eu les mots qu'il faut pour décrire ma vie.
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Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
I hadn't gotten old enough yet to realize that living sends a person not into the future but back into the past, to childhood and before birth, finally, to commune with the dead.
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Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
I was aware only of what a strange thing it was to be male. Society discriminated against women, no question. But what about the discrimination of being sent to war? Which sex was really thought to be expendable?
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Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
And so it began. He played "Begin the Beguine" against Tessie's collarbone. He played "Moonface" against her smooth cheeks. Pressing the clarinet right up against the red toenails that had so dazzled him, he played "It Goes to Your Feet." With a secrecy they didn't acknowledge, Milton and Tessie drifted off to quiet parts of the house, and there, lifting her skirt a little, or removing a sock, or once, when nobody was home, pulling up her blouse to expose her lower back, Tessie allowed Milton to press his clarinet to her skin and fill her body with music. At first it only tickled her. But after a while the notes spread deeper into her body. She felt the vibrations penetrate her muscles, pulsing in waves, until they rattled her bones and made her inner organs hum.
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Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
Mas talvez as Pulseiras de Pingentes soubessem mais da vida do que eu. Desde muito cedo compreendiam que o mundo dava pouco valor aos livros, e por isso não gastavam seu tempo com eles. Ao passo que eu, até hoje, persisto na crença de que essas manchas pretas sobre papel branco têm a maior importância, e que, se seguir escrevendo, talvez consiga capturar num pote o arco-íris da consciência.
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Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy.
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Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
Luce put his hand on the small of my back. Men have an annoying way of doing that. They touch your back as though there's a handle there, and direct you where they want you to go. Or they place their hand on your head, paternally. Men and their hands.
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Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar.
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Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
My mind was curiously blank. It was the blankness of obedience. With the unerring instinct of children, I had surmised what my parents wanted from me. They wanted me to stay the way I was. {434}"
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Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
We were reckless with the implications
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Jeffrey Eugenides _ Middlesex
Downstairs, entertaining company, Desdemona heard her son's clarinet and, as if orchestrating a harmony, let out a long sigh. For the last forty-five minutes Gus and Georgia Vasilakis and their daughter Gaia had been sitting in the living room. It was Sunday afternoon. On the coffee table a dish of rose jelly reflected light from the sparkling glasses of wine the adults were drinking. Gaia nursed a glass of lukewarm Vernor's ginger ale. An open tin of butter cookies sat on the table.
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