Fiction Ruined My Family (2011) (edit title/settings)

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Quotes edit see section history

• “My dad doesn't have an iota of the depressive in him. He just depresses other people. Nothing brings him down. But this can't be true. I think it just comes out when absolutely no one else is around. It always seemed that while I knew he loved us a lot, my father actually needed nothing to be happy except books. There was enough in literature to challenge, entertain, amuse and inspire a man for a lifetime. Books and music were simply enough to sustain anyone was what he radiated. Humor, love, tragedy, it was all contained therein. And if all he needed was books, then he probably wouldn't mind if he lost the house and the wife and the whole life. Because the story was more important than the family. The story being that he was going to write the Great American Novel and finally be important, and in being important, he would be loved. Willing to lose his family to be loved by his family. Oh, the tragic blunder of this. It could almost drive someone mad. Wait, it did drive someone mad.”

• “"It seems like you're reading," I said, from the pink Princess telephone in my room, which came from my grandmother's house in St. Louis. It still had her old exchange phone number on the front, that Hitchcockian combination of words and letters. I loved it, not because I liked pink or irony, or was sentimental, but because the ringer was broken. I could call out but was never disturbed by incoming calls in my bedroom. The perfect form of communication in my mind, a model for what I fantasized about in a romantic relationship.”

• “I was under the impression clichés could ruin you, ruin your life, your hopes and dreams, bring down your whole operation if you didn't watch it. They were gateway language, leading straight to a business major, a golfy marriage, needlepoint pillows that said things about your golf game, and a self-inflicted gunshot to the head that your family called a heart attack in your alma mater announcements. Character suicide.”

• “He was like the Great Santini of the Strand. Few people could take him on; he was so well-read and had a memory that could retain every detail of everything he'd ever read, as well as jokes, lyrics, arias, names of store owners he'd met on his honeymoon in Paris, names of restaurants where gangsters were gunned down in 1924. He could quote lines from books he disliked better than you could quote lines from what you claimed was your favorite book of all time.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• The worst feeling I had as a kid was the feeling that my mother was willing to miss my life for a drink,

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• “Something may be a sort of fulfillment of yourself, and it may not be great to other people, but it is just as essential to yourself as if it is a great masterpiece.”

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• People often make the mistake of trying to bring people to their level of sanity or sobriety or intelligence or what have you. A much more pleasurable option is to go to their special place for a few hours.

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• My mother was not just about who she became, she was about who she made you become.

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• She loved whatever part of them was lovable and ignored the rest of them.

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• What people who get sober don’t talk about is that sobriety can be monotonous, can feel like your personality is living in a gated community, that sometimes it’s hard to access fun and wildness

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• For a long time I was worried about becoming my father. Then I was worried about becoming my mother. Now I was worried about becoming myself.

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• I’m a half-artist. I’m smart and talented but I’m not tough enough to go the distance. It’s a curse being a half-artist, caught between being a normal person and a real creative person. I’m nuts like a good artist, but I don’t have anything to show for it.”

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• DESPITE WHAT ALL the triumphant recovery movies and books might have you believe, it’s possible to get sober and have nobody really give a shit.

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• you have to stay on the writing always and do whatever you need to concurrently. I was told, “Never do anything in order to write. Don’t take a job, don’t even take a shower in order to write. You’ll never get to the writing. You write.”

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First Sentence edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Jeanne Darst (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.6

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Health, Mind & Body › Relationships › Interpersonal Relations
• Books › Biographies & Memoirs › Memoirs
• Books › Entertainment › Humor

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• The Jeanne Darst Story: The author's official website.
• This American Life - Episode 439, A House Divided: Act Three of this episode #437 This American Life: "Jeanne Darst was 16 when her parents split up. But it turned out they just weren't too skilled at the whole divorce thing. A<n unabridged> version of this story is included in Jeanne's forthcoming book Fiction Ruined My Family"

Books Cited by This Book edit see section history