It required all his delicate Epicurean education to prevent his doing something about it; he had to repeat over to himself his favorite notions: that the injustice and unhappiness in the world is a constant; that the theory of progress is a delusion; that the poor, never having known happiness, are insensible to misfortune. Like all the rich he could not bring himself to believe that the poor (look at their houses, look at their clothes) could really suffer. Like all the cultivated he believed that only the widely read could be said to know that they were unhappy.
Denny thought our parents needed a combination of material goods and temperamental changes before he could return home. __f Dad buys Ma a car, then she__l love him, and they__l get back together and she won__ be all crazy anymore,_ he said. For years he held out the possibility that those things would happen and all would change. __f we had more things, like stoves and cars,_ he told me at night in our bedroom, __nd Ma wasn__ like she is, we could go home.
No Time to Say Goodbye: A Memoir of a Life in Foster Care
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Denny thought our parents needed a combination of material goods and temperamental changes before he could return home. __f Dad buys Ma a car, then she__l love him, and they__l get back together and she won__ be all crazy anymore,_ he said. For years he held out the possibility that those things would happen and all would change. __f we had more things, like stoves and cars,_ he told me at night in our bedroom, __nd Ma wasn__ like she is, we could go home.
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