Best 1003 quotes in «memoir quotes» category

How can it be that there is such a colossal gap between what we think we know about grief and mourning and what we actually find out when it comes to us?

How could she have gotten herself here? To this place where she stood by while the man she adored checked out things to share with his wife? You knew what you were getting into. But that wasn’t really true. One never knew, not entirely, not until in really deep. She screamed and seethed in raw silence. Damien came in then, and spooned her. He hadn’t a clue she was an impulse away from getting up, dressing, and leaving. How shocked he would be, if she did that. And he’d conclude that she wasn’t the well-matched true lover that he thought he had finally, at long last, discovered. That thought ploughed a spike deeply through her. It gouged her so much that her breath stopped. It hurt her even more than did the wife. And she knew in that moment while he settled into bliss that she wasn’t going to leave, that leaving hadn’t had the slightest chance.

How does what we see cloaked as “news” by “journalists” jive with his mandate that a journalist should strive to be objective, not blur facts with opinions, and maintain the impartial integrity of the noble profession of journalism?

How do we deal with all the people we’ve been? What happens when we have to confront them?

However, narrating what you remember, telling it to someone, does something else. The more a person recalls a memory, the more they change it. Each time they put it into language, it shifts. The more you describe a memory, the more likely it is that you are making a story that fits your life, resolves the past, creates a fiction you can live with. It’s what writers do. Once you open your mouth, you are moving away from the truth of things. According to neuroscience. The safest memories are locked in the brains of people who can’t remember. Their memories remain the closest replica of actual events. Underwater. Forever.

How many pages will it take to tell your story?

How many people have I heard claim their children as the greatest accomplishment and comfort of their lives? It's the thing they can always lean on during a metaphysical crisis, or a moment of doubt about their relevancy - If I have done nothing else in this life, then at least I have raised my children well. But what if, either by choice or by reluctant necessity, you end up not participating in this comforting cycle of family and continuity? What if you step out? Where do you sit at the reunion? How do you mark time's passage without the fear that you've just fritted away your time on earth without being relevant? You'll need to find another purpose, another measure by which to judge whether or not you have been a successful human being. I love children, but what if I don't have any? What kind of person does that make me? Virginia Woolf wrote, "Across the broad continent of a woman's life falls the shadow of a sword." On one side of that sword, she said, there lies convention and tradition and order, where "all is correct." But on the other side of that sword, if you're crazy enough to cross it and choose a life that does not follow convention, "all is confusion. Nothing follows a regular course." Her argument was that the crossing of the shadow of that sword may bring a far more interesting existence to a woman, but you can bet it will also be more perilous.

How many humans over thousands of years have stood thus with their horses, seeing in them the lines of universal perfection, the majesty of grace and power, feeling stronger and more beautiful themselves for their contact with the magical power of such a steed? Such is the lure of the horse. In a world in which grace is neither synonymous nor usually compatible with power, the horse has remained an ancient symbol of strength and elegance, an icon of a majestic essence that exists far outside mere human beings. Because of the space that lies between us — only the cruelest amongst us ever truly conquers a horse — there is magic. “ — Margot Page

How long you guys been renovating?” Craig asked Arianna. “About a month.” “How much longer?” Arianna sighed. “The contractor messed up the counters, so who knows.” “Preaching to the choir.” “Yeah?” “Oh, yeah. But in the end everything turned out for the best.” “How so?” “Well, for one, I switched from laminate to granite.” “Granite . . .” She exhaled, confounded, as if the granite countertop quandary was the most perplexing philosophical question of all time. “Yeah . . .We’re torn.” “More expensive, but aesthetically superior,” Craig lobbied. “Also retains value longer.” Knowing the sexual perversity about to transpire, I couldn’t reconcile that I was suddenly in an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Granted, I didn’t know from normal pre–group sex discussion topics, but I was pretty sure home improvement wasn’t on the list.

How to hang on to that full-body joy I knew I was capable of and still understand it as elegy.

How to preside over your own internal disorder? Finding the "I" that can represent the pack of you is the first challenge of the memoirist.

How well do you know the people who raised you? Look around your dining room table. Look around at your loved ones, especially the elders. The grandparents and the aunts and uncles who used to give you shiny new quarters and unvarnished advice. How much do you really know about their lives. Perhaps you've heard that they served in a war, or lived for a time in a log cabin, or arrived in this country speaking little or no English. Maybe they survived the Holocaust or the Dust Bowl. How were they shaped by the Depression or the Cold War, or the stutter-step march towards integration in their own community? What were they like before they married or took on mortgages and assumed all the worries that attend the feeding, clothing, and education of their children? If you don't already know the answers, the people who raised you will most likely remain a mystery, unless you take the bold step and say: Tell me more about yourself.

Humor writers: 1) Write 2) Laugh 3) Laugh when they write 4) Write when they laugh

I also get that we women in particular must work very hard to keep our fantasies as clearly and cleanly delineated from our realities as possible, and that sometimes it can take years of effort to reach such a point of sober discernment.

I always felt awkward and unfinished, unworthy of love, suspicious of affection offered. My mother's absence became a great presence in my life.

...I am about eight years old when I first become aware of being other--foreign, outside, separate. Because this lesson comes from my own family, it resonates deeper and truer than playground taunts ever have.

I am a product of two worlds and each world has given me a reason to love, be kind and grow strong.

I am in the unthinkable situation that people cannot bear to contemplate.

I am not and autobiographical writer--one can't be without a solid and explicable self--and read all autobiographical writers with the same curiosity. What kind of life permits a person the right to become his own subject?

I am not enough in myself; I can barely make it through buying milk and school supplies. Thank goodness there is a Guardian to come before me and throw off the dark.

I am not your dog that you whistle for; I’m not a stray animal you call over, and I am not, I never have been, nor will I ever be, your “baby”!

I am not here to make you feel better, I am just here to make you feel worse

I am not who I was. I am not even who I was yesterday. Tomorrow I will be new again, and again, until I am completely the woman I was meant to be.

I am still not good enough. I am still not whole enough. I am still not pure enough. I am still weakness and sharp edges and broken, but He is good and pure and whole, all that I strive for but am not. I wake up every morning and I sit in silence and I choose to believe. I may speak. I may not. I let Him wrap up all my broken in to His grace. He takes me imperfect. This is the great mystery I never knew.

I believe in a God who not only intervenes in human affairs--again and again--but one who also makes banquets out of stale bread.

I associate so many fond memories with food. On that damp evening, along in a tiny restaurant smelling of mildew and lobster, I was 1,600 miles from everyone I knew and loved. After one bite of the pie, I closed my eyes, and taste transported me back to the warm, familiar comfort of my grandmother's kitchen. She always had a pie sitting on the kitchen counter, ready to serve, and a fresh pot of coffee brewing.

I began to lust after our conjoining life.

I avoided one-on-one situations, eye contact, and healthy relationships. Instead I took refuge in drinking too much, cheap sex, and sarcasm.

I applied at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard after my band broke up. I really wanted to work there because it involved the love of my life, music. It was also located on the world famous Sunset Strip, a place I dreamed of going to ever since I was a teenager in the 80's to become a rock star.

I believe in beauty. I believe in goodness. I believe in the power of turning: the other cheek, time, curve of the earth.

I carried with me into the West End Bar, the White Horse Tavern, a long list of things I would never do: I would never have my hair set in a beauty parlor. I would never move to a suburb and bake cakes or make casseroles. I would never go to a country club dance, although I did like the paper lanterns casting rainbow colors on the terrace. I would never invest in the stock market. I would never play canasta. I would never wear pearls. I would love like a nursling but I would never go near a man who had a portfolio or a set of golf clubs or a business or even a business suit. I would only love a wild thing. I didn't care if wild things tended to break hearts. I didn't care if they substituted scotch for breakfast cereal. I understood that wild things wrote suicide notes to the gods and were apt to show up three hours later than promised. I understood that art was long and life was short.

I can tell you that events were incremental, that the unbelievable became the believable and, ultimately, the normal.

I cherish this book review from the former Executive Director of Contemplative Outreach: A beautiful book. This elegant and authentic memoir of a faith-filled woman shows how it is possible to be very successful and yet vulnerable enough to completely depend on the indwelling Spirit. -Gail Fitzpatrick-Hopler

I come from a small town in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania.

I considered not getting up, but recognized the pain of staying down was worse than the pain of attempting to stand.

I could not feel, smell, see, hear, or taste the world around me. If I had allowed myself to experience these things in all their intensity, I might have lost my mind. If I had allowed myself to cry, I might never have been able to stop. So I survived, but I never felt joy, never felt safe.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the blood. As odd as it sounds, I felt irritated. I'd just cleaned that glass when I first came in on my shift today. Knowing Jim, he'd make me clean them again before I could go home. After he chewed me out, of course.

I could simply kill you now, get it over with, who would know the difference? I could easily kick you in, stove you under, for all those times, mean on gin, you rammed words into my belly. (p. 52)

I’d believed I needed to be steady in myself before I could function with others—but surviving alone no longer felt like a good way either.

I’d begun at the soundless place where California touches Mexico with five Gatorade bottles full of water and eleven pounds of gear and lots of candy. My backpack was tiny, no bigger than a schoolgirl’s knapsack. Everything I carried was everything I had.

I could hear my abandoned dreams making a racket in my soul.

I couldn’t yet piece together the disconnected clues to understand the origin of these lights. To explain away strange magic, I’d convinced myself there was an unseen road cutting across the boundless desert floor like a scar. I imagined its different possible courses. The mystery intrigued me. I couldn’t think of the real destination this road would have been built to lead to, but I accepted I couldn’t see, and I accepted it was there, strange but – from where I stood – a beautiful vision.

I’d become hooked on journalism at once in college when I took my first news writing class at age 19.

I define success as being the best, authentic me that I can be.

I didn’t exactly raise my hand and shout “I want to work for the devil!” but I ended up doing his bidding anyway. Ironically, more than a few people told me I was doing the Lord’s work. I knew better than that. I wasn’t saving anyone’s soul or leading them to Jesus. But, I did believe I was saving the country.

I didn’t know if I was brave or reckless.

I didn’t know what I would do. There was no way I could survive. I stared at my damp tent ceiling, feeling the frigid air against me, the frozen ground against my bottom, so cold my bare skin burned. I needed to get to the next trail-town, Mammoth Lakes. There was no one here to save me now.

I didn’t punish myself because I wanted to. I punished myself because I thought it was normal to live for others.

I didn't know then what words and stories would mean to me. I had no idea they would grow long alien arms and wrap around me and show me the sky and the galaxy and beyond. Books would change my stripes and make me cry and sink into my skull. Books excited me.

...I didn't want to be a passenger on someone else's motorcycle. I wanted to be the one riding that motherfucker.