Cecily: A vagina is sometimes called a clam.
Raj: And there’s me thinking clams are called clams and vaginas are called vaginas.
paris
Christian, on friends.
Christian: We all said we’d help Oscar move house. Caroline promised to clear her schedule Sunday. I said I’d bring Benjamin and Hélène. George was going to bring the boxes. Veronique said she’d send her maid.
Two friends, on narrative.
Cecily: I go through silly extremes. Last year, I worked myself to the bone physically and emotionally. Then, I was a voracious shopper, in glittering boots and Serbian rabbit furs. Then I became a restless housewife, befriended by laundry and experimental stews. The continuum of my life is so fractured, and my dominant personality traits shift so frequently. This is one of the reasons I crave marriage. It seems like necessary connective tissue in the narrative of my life. Thing is, I’m not sure if real life is supposed to have a narrative arc.
Xavier: It’s not. And if we treat ourselves like we’re fictional characters, then it will rarely be with any sort of actual justice or understanding. It will be a series of grand sweeping gestural things, and unrealistic narrativising. Leave that to other people to do about you.
Cecily: But narrative smoothness in life might help. Might help me keep a tabs on how I’m doing as a human. I feel kind of like a fish. A fish with nowhere to go, in a really fancy hat.
Cecily, on Paris.
Cecily: The streets are romantic, and filled with lovers who don’t even know each other.
Two friends, on Paris afternoons.
Christian: It’s a lovely afternoon. Let’s go to Place Saint Catherine, to the café with the flirty waiters. Do you know the one I mean?
Cecily: I shall take a punt and guess the café, or stroll around the square until you arrive to guide me to this font of hotness.
Sisters, on dressing.
Delilah: Tell me, are you dressed entirely as Zelda Fitzgerald?
Cecily: How does Zelda Fitzgerald dress?
Delilah: With regard.
Cecily: I am in bed. So I am not dressing with regard.
Delilah: Perfect. Not dressing, with regard. You should know, it’s dangerous leaving punctuation to your adversary.
Sisters, on celebrity.
Cecily: You’re building quite a fan base.
Delilah: Excellent. Wait. What? Amongst who? Satanists?
Cecily: Everyone. Your darkness is a lovely foil to Cecily’s sparkling naïveté.
Delilah: Wonderful. But how do you know?
Cecily: People write me and tell me.
Delilah: Interesting. I guess without this face, the darkness becomes a lot easier to accept. How are they regarding Alexander?
Cecily: They’re either Team Cecily or Team Alexander.
Delilah: I never expected your writing to get ‘teamed’.
Cecily: I am polarizing.
Delilah: Yes. But I assumed fans of your prose would deride any hint of group identification.
Two sisters, on genetics.
Cecily: One wonders how our parents, being who they are, created us.
Delilah: Well, what would you retrospectively expect? A russian count and a coquettish haberdasher? If you pay any mind to matters of the completely random you’ll go inaccessibly insane before your prospective memoir publishers have time to commence their battle royale.
Two Italians, on the night sun.
Carlo: The night sun is good.
Nicolas: You’re looking at a gas heater.
Carlo: But it is a gift — bright and lovely.
Two friends, on budgets.
Cecily: Raj says my version of being on a budget is purchasing a €20,000 dress for €2,000.
Ohan: That is a great deal. Especially if you can sell it for €10,000.
Cecily: The problem is, I get attached to things. Especially things I have acquired through good deals. I feel it in my soul. In my blood. The deal-making. I am my mother’s daughter.
Ohan: Which part of your blood makes you not sell?
Cecily: The Cecily part.
thedailymails 