Nora Holleran Quotes

Nora: Alex, this is genius. Okay—listen. You go to law school, I go to grad school, June becomes a speechwriter-slash-author Rebecca Traister–Roxane Gay voice of a generation, I become the data scientist who saves the world, and you—

Alex: —become a badass civil rights attorney with an illustrious Captain America-esque career of curb-stomping discriminatory laws and fighting for the disenfranchised—

Nora: —and you and Henry become the world’s favorite geopolitical power couple—

Alex: —and by the time I’m Rafael Luna’s age—

Nora: —people are going to be begging you to run for Senate. Yeah. So, like, a lot slower than planned. But.

Alex: Yeah. It sounds good.

Alex: It’s weird. My whole life, I was hanging on to this imaginary future person I was gonna be. Like, the plan— graduation, campaigns, staffer, Congress. That was it. Straight into the game. I was gonna be the person who could do that… who wanted that. And now here I am, and the person I’ve become is… not that person.

Nora: But do you like him?

Alex: Yeah. Yeah, I do.

Alex: I had to sign such a massive NDA that I’m convinced I’m gonna drop through a trapdoor into a torture dungeon any minute.

Nora: I bet he has a secret lovechild. Or he’s gay. Or he has a secret gay lovechild.

Alex: It’s probably in case I see his equerry putting his batteries back in.

Nora: I think it’s amazing. Sworn enemies forced to make peace to settle tensions between their countries? There’s something totally Shakespearean about it.

Alex: Shakespearean in that hopefully I’ll get stabbed to death. This sheet says his favorite food is mutton pie. I literally cannot think of a more boring food. He’s like a cardboard cutout of a person.

(Henry asks June to dance with him, she agrees…)

Alex: So is that what’s happening now? Has he decided to finally shut me up by wooing my sister?

Nora: Aw, little buddy. It’s cute how you think everything is about you.

Alex: It should be, honestly.

Nora: That’s the spirit.

June: Do either of y’all know what a viscount is? I’ve met, like, five of them, and I keep smiling politely as if I know what it means when they say it. Alex, you took comparative international governmental relational things. Whatever. What are they?

Alex: I think it’s that thing when a vampire creates an army of crazed sex waifs and starts his own ruling body.

Nora: That sounds right.

June: I wish I were a viscount. I could have my sex waifs deal with my emails.

Alex: Are sex waifs good with professional correspondence?

Nora: I think it could be an interesting approach. Their emails would be all tragic and wanton. “Oh, please, I beg you, take me—take me to lunch to discuss fabric samples, you beast!”

Alex: Could be weirdly effective.

June: Something is wrong with both of you.