Favorite scenes and quotes

[Stephanie]

Use this thread to post your favorite quotes or scenes from Run.

[IBIS]

I live in Boston, and I enjoyed reading about the city that I know so well. There were many references to Harvard University, the Kennedy School of Government, the Cathedral of John the Divine and local Boston landmarksstreets.

Ann Patchett casts a skeptical eye on the "gentrification" of some areas of Boston.

One passage (p.215) where Tip and Kenya walk on Dartmouth Street after a heavy snowfall is my absolute favorite:

"They were moving down Dartmouth Street at a good clip....The sidewalk was brick, charming, until you tried to shovel off the snow... Same old Dartmouth Street, a shrine to wealth and minutely polished taste, every narrow side street more precious and perfect than the other before it....

"The street's gotten too gentrified," Tip said.

He turned his head up to see four stories of gentrification, ... the South end was a long way away from the squatter days, its fire-in-the-trash-barrel days... Kenya took inventory of the empty window boxes, the slender birch trees in the sidewalk, the stair rails fashioned in ornate ironwork. Even in the snow it all looked orderly and neat. She knew full well how lovely it would be once the purple vinca made a carpet around every tree and the geraniums filled the boxes.

"But it looks nice," Kenya said.

"You're missing the point," Tip said. "While they're fixing the windows and picking up the trash and planting flowers, they get rid of the poor people too. I mean the black people, the brown people. They push them out over into Roxbury. That's the gentry's idea of cleaning up."

OUCH!

[Stephanie]

IBIS,

What great quotes you chose! I can picture that scene so vividly (as I can so many others), that it is almost as if I'm there. And "ouch" is right!