my good qualities were my bad qualities

“How simple it could be! The answer to the problem of being anything was being it. How admirable Teddy was! From the ashes of his broken childhood he had formed a decision to be a cheerful person, a do-gooding scientific type with knowledge of English literature. That he had undercurrents of sadness as long and deep as a river was not the point. He had claimed a territory for himself and did not think too much about the complications.”
― Laurie Colwin, A Big Storm Knocked It Over

“She said that my good qualities were my bad qualities -- this I have come to realize is true of everyone. On the one hand, I was game, eager and perfectly ready to see what was in front of me. On the other hand, I had no sense of direction or destiny.”
― Laurie Colwin

“Life is never smooth to the great-granddaughter of tin peddlers who were kicked out of Russia,' said Misty. 'It's no accident that all my family is in one embattled profession or another. We're just waiting for the Cossacks to come back. When the Cossacks come to Connecticut, you'll understand.'
Meanwhile, it was hard to feel much gloom at all, although to keep her balance, Misty clung to it wherever she found it.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Sam loved me in a way that was as close as love could come to his mother’s indifference. It was playful, bouncy, it accepted the situation between us without annotations, and without realizing it, he stuck me like a buffer between himself and his parents. He had a wife, and that warded them off. How could he be wild if he was settled? How could he be in trouble if he was married? He might have known these things, but coming from that emotionally monosyllabic household, how could he have had a vocabulary for them?”
― Laurie Colwin, Shine On, Bright & Dangerous Object

“He was the soul of kindness and concern. The fact that he had talked to my father about this made me want to stab him. But I only said, “I’ll talk to Patrick. This doesn’t sit right with me.”
― Laurie Colwin, Shine On, Bright & Dangerous Object