207 quotes found
“My mother was everything to me…and then I got married…and my husband became everything to me. It struck me then… Regret was a wasted emotion… Guilt was even worse. But who can escape these destruct...”
“We are not defined by what knocks us down - we are defined by how e get back up”
“In two months, I think, my college job will end. In two months I will have no office, no college, no salary, no home. Everything will be different. But, I think, everything already is. When Alice d...”
“I have referred to it as a gift--something for which others with this affliction have taken me to task. I was only speaking from my own experience, of course, but I stand partially corrected: if it...”
“Always remember that your memoir is never about you. It's about your reader. At it's core, it's about that shared space where we all experience the timeless truths of what it means to be human.”
“It is winter, and very cold. There are icicles against the glass, and frost. I am tracing a pattern, before it melts. Before it fades, and is lost for good, like memories”
“On his departure, he glanced swiftly back as he passed the furtive gaze of the gloved footmen.He was swept away in the momentum of shimmering glass....I had seen how the world turned, and I was beg...”
“Our eyes met. I kissed her soft face, and down the stairs they descended. Their voices blended into an echo, a murmur. I ventured barefoot into the bedroom. The dark gown lay crumpled upon the bed”
“There were women who navigated in canoes, holding their children, the beguiling wind blowing soft sleet kisses, raining upon their skins”
“The sun came out, warm on my back through my white school blouse.the streets were familiar, past the old tannery, the Jet garage. Past the Asian corner shop with rainbow jars of Kayli, gobstoppers ...”
“I was climbing high, high up Pen Dinas Head among the sparkling yellow gorse, sea birds and white heather, with the oily sheep huddled together against the wind”
“There are bald patches, like Daddy's head, on the pebble-dash, higher up than last year. I have picked off the stones. (I was a graffiti artist. No words, no pictures. The trace of identity marked ...”
“It's hard to be an articulate ghost.”
“Popeye the Sailor Man has more cultural longevity. Only women and poofs read or write now. Otherwise, these days, no sooner has someone been sodomised by a close relative than they think they can w...”
“In order to write a memoir, I’ve sat still inside the swirling vortex of my own complicated history like a piece of old driftwood, battered by the sea. I’ve waited—sometimes patiently, sometimes in...”
“I read somewhere that a man should tell the story of his life at the age of forty, and this deadline is fast approaching as I write these lines, only a few short weeks remain before this ominous bi...”
“Let us call the world to come together – every child, every woman and every man. Letus draw a bigger picture, one that enters every home, every heart and brings togetherevery voice.Let us listen to...”
“I loved the idea that looking at a painting or listening to a concerto could make you somehow "transcend" the day-in, day-out bullshit that grinds you down: how in one instant of pure attention you...”
“Doing a geographic” is a term alcoholics often use for acting on the impulse to start over by moving to a new town, or state, instead of making any internal changes. It’s the anywhere-but-here part...”
“I usually enjoy setting up a new kitchen, but this has become a joyless and highly charged task. My mother and I each have our own set of kitchen boxes, which means that if there are two cheese gra...”
