Brighton Beach Memoirs Quotes

Sure it hurts, but if you love someone, you forgive them." Blanche Somethings you forgive, somethings you never forgive." Kate

Evan Handler's new book is simply wonderful. He pulls you inside his life, and you come out his very close friend.

Brighton Beach does not look, smell, or sound like Russia. It's a parody of Russia at best, something as different from the real thing as a picture of the Eiffel Tower. Yes, they sell Russian food on Brighton Beach, and Russian books and videos, and Russian clothes, and there are Russian restaurants and Russian nightclubs, and everybody speaks Russian, but the Russianness of the place is so concentrated that it feels ridiculously exaggerated. Everything Russian on Brighton Beach is too Russian, far more Russian than in real Russia. This is what happens all over Brooklyn. From the Scandinavians of Bay Ridge to the Chinese of Sunset Park, Brooklyn's immigrants go to ridiculous extremes to re-create their homelands only to end up with a vulgar pastiche.

I mean, if you give in when you're eighteen and a half, you'll give in for the rest of your life, don't you think?