Book

The First Bad Man: A Novel

The instant New York Times bestseller is “astonishing…In one novel, Miranda July tells us more about our universal need to be loved, and our ability to love and be loved, than most earthbound authors will in a lifetime” (Vanity Fair). <BR

(7 total)

Characters

Miranda July (7)

“A real mother throws her heart over the fence and then climbs after it.”

— Miranda July, amazon.com

Tagged: Motherhood, Parenthood, Love

“I crested the mountain of my self-pity and remembered I was always going to die at the end of this life anyway. What did it really matter if I spent it like this—caring for this boy—as opposed to some other way? I would always be earthbound; he hadn’t robbed me of my ability to fly or to live foreve…”

— Miranda July, amazon.com

Tagged: Self-Pity, Life, Motherhood, Childhood, Mortality

“We had fallen in love; that was still true. But given the right psychological conditions, a person could fall in love with anyone or anything.”

— Miranda July, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Falling In Love, Relationships

“What was the lifespan of these improbable loves? An hour. A week. A few months at best. The end was a natural thing, like the seasons, like getting older, fruit turning. That was the saddest part—there was no one to blame and no way to reverse.”

— Miranda July, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Relationships, Affairs, Improbable Love

“You know what? Forget what I just said. You’re already a part of this. You will eat, you will laugh at stupid things, you will stay up all night just to see what it feels like, you will fall painfully in love, you will have babies of your own, you will doubt and regret and yearn and keep a secret. Y…”

— Miranda July, amazon.com

Tagged: Living, Dying, Childhood, Growing Up

“Sometimes I looked at her sleeping face, the living flesh of it, and was overwhelmed by how precarious it was to love a living thing. She could die simply from lack of water. It hardly seemed safer than falling in love with a plant.”

— Miranda July, amazon.com

Tagged: Love, Living, humanity, The Human Condition

“If you were wise enough to know that this life would consist mostly of letting go of things you wanted, then why not get good at the letting go, rather than the trying to have”

— Miranda July, amazon.com

Tagged: Letting Go, Holding On, Change