Quote of the weekend

"The train was pretty empty, just a gaggle of Bronxville soccer moms going into the city to spend money. There was something creepily alike about all of them, as if they were the same model of car, just different years: one wore a white sundress with pink stripes, another wore a pink sundress with green polka dots. They all wore sandals and had designer sunglasses perched atop their similarly coiffed heads. I found this spectacle somewhat depressing, because I had always thought, or hoped, that adults weren't necessarily as hobbled by mindless conformity as so many of my peers seem to be. I always looked forward to being an adult, because I thought the adult world was, well -- adult. That adults weren't cliquey or nasty, that the whole notion of being cool, or in, or popular would cease to be the arbiter of all things social, but I was beginning to realize that the adult world was as nonsensically brutal and socially perilous as the kingdom of childhood. But beneath their gloss of confidence and entitlement, I could tell the ladies were nervous, almost scared, for they knew they didn't belong in the city anymore -- once they married the investment banker and moved to Bronxville they ceased to be New Yorkers. The city is cruel in that way."

-- Peter Cameron, Some Day This Pain Will Be Useful To You (Picador, 2009), pp.214-215.