Best Of Meg Howrey's "They're Going to Love You"

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from They're Going to Love You by Meg Howrey

“None of us can control our story anymore. Algorithms are the new Greek chorus.”

"Music tells us to move, to dance," he says. "But when we are still within music, we absorb all of its power. We are its container. Not every movement needs to go out into the world. We can keep some for ourselves. Contained. Powerful."

p. 2-3

"At home, I listen to a Maki Namekawa recording of Philip Glass's Études. I love her musicianship. With the études, she's not trying to tell me how to think about anything. She's not playing on my feelings, she's playing her piano, she's working. If she—and Philip Glass—is telling me anything right now it's Look at what this goddamn instrument can do if you get good at touching it."

"I agree there is me although I'm beginning to wonder hora there is me. James sees I'm distressed and calls me over to the piano to turn pages for him. "Poulenc is good for restless souls, he says. "If you don't like one part, just wait. Every eight bars he becomes a completely different composer."

"Women talk about mothers; it's practically the way we greet each other."

"The party does feel like a celebration, although it has a brittle, crackling edge. "Joy is political now," someone says. "It's defiance.""

"Xavier is a white male, but is there another factor that explains his success? Or is it one of those attributes, like arrogance or sense of entitlement or emotional volatility, that anly work in your favor if you're a white man?"

"Girls start pointe work around eleven or twelve, an introduction to controlling and overcoming pain at just the right time. It's not torture. The pain gives a return that I can't imagine torture does. Dancing on pointe weaponizes ballet for girls. We get taller, and our turns gain speed. Everything becomes more dangerous and more direct, literally more pointed. Our legs become swords."

"Ballet makes fools of us all."

"There is a crucial devotion necessary for ballet. This seems obvious, but its parameters are not. Devotion is not precisely about love. A great dancer needs a mysterious alchemy of humility and obsession. It's a question of morals."

"Do I tone this act down eventually? A little. But by then I've discovered the pleasures of solitude and acquired the habit of loneliness. These are hard to give up."

"Oh, petulance is no fun at my age. Flat-out rage has more dignity."

"The lute and the recorder are not instruments for fury." 

"There are certain poems you must read now, Carlisle, when they will make you feel seen. Later on, they'll make you feel invisible.""

p.99-100

"Sometimes, you make things to keep yourself company."

 

"There's a lovely, tiny park at hand, and a bench occupied by two chatting women, a little older than I am. We smile at each other the way women do when we're signaling our gratitude that the stranger invading our space is a woman rather than a man." 

p. 264

"Like when you can hear musicians turning the pages of their scores from the orchestra pit. I love that sound, its churchly focus. Devotion." 

p.264