Published on September 4th, 2002, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (who also wrote The Virgin Suicides) tells the story of Greek-American Calliope ‘Cal’ Stephanides, growing up in the unrest of 1960s/70s Detroit, and the history of three generations of the Stehpanides family. Calliope learns at the age of 14 that she is intersex and the journey to becoming Cal, the man he was always meant to be, begins. Eugenides writes beautifully about life, love, and being true to yourself. Here are some of the best quotes from the book.
1. “Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.”
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2. “Emotions, in my experience, aren’t covered by single words…”
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3. “Can you see me? All of me? Probably not. No one ever really has.”
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4. “I live my own life and nurse my own wounds. It’s not the best way to live. But it’s the way I am.”
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5. “There was nowhere I could go that wouldn’t be you.”
6. “She understood that her heart operated on its own instructions, that she had no control over it or, indeed, anything else.”
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7. “But in the end it wasn’t up to me. The big things never are. Birth, I mean, and death. And love. And what love bequeaths to us before we’re born.”
