The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Novel

My mother raised me to be polite, to be demure. I have long operated under the idea that civility is subservience. But it hasn’t gotten me very far, that type of kindness. The world respects people who think they should be running it.

Being wanted meant having to satisfy. At least, that was my view of it back then.

People think that intimacy is about sex. But intimacy is about truth.

You have to find a job that makes your heart feel big instead of one that makes it feel small.

Some people are lucky like that. Me, I’ve always gone after what I wanted with everything in me. Others fall into happiness. Sometimes I wish I was like them. I’m sure sometimes they wish they were like me.

“Nobody deserves anything,” Evelyn says. “It’s simply a matter of who’s willing to go and take it for themselves. And you, Monique, are a person who has proven to be willing to go out there and take what you want. So be honest about that. No one is just a victim or a victor.

It was then that I knew that the only time anyone would know anything true about my life was when I told them directly. In a book.

have been reeling because I failed. Because I picked the wrong guy for me. Because I entered the wrong marriage. Because the truth is that at the age of thirty-five, I have yet to love someone enough to sacrifice for them. I’ve yet to open my heart enough to let someone in that much.

Men go to bed with Gilda, but wake up with me.