Quotes from Elizabeth Hay

The phrase that came to her mind was "the long and sudden of I." We go on and on through the long months of our lives until we hit a sudden moment that stuns us.

You're brave to have driven all this way." Gwen considered for a moment whether this made her brave. In truth, she was always afraid, always worried. She shook her head. "Like I said, I've always wanted to come north for as long as I can remember." "Three thousand miles!" "Yes," still unimpressed by herself," but I never went over fifty.

Forgiveness, she was thinking, was in some terrible, overeager way, a lack of curiosity. It was a big, powerful hose that washed everything away. She had, in effect, turned the hose on herself. "Of course I forgive you." As eager to reconcile as she has been in the schoolyard and in her first marriage too. Only to think that now she should not have been so hasty. Forgiveness was the premature end to the story. She had skipped to the last page instead of reading the book through.

You run over a part of yourself when you run over something that has such a place in your heart.

I'm dealing with nothing too. It goes on and on.

Jim enjoyed watching people take sides. It increased the drama and he loved the drama. Yet it worried him too, since he wanted people to like each other and he wanted to be on the right side, the brave and exciting side.

The worst things were cowardly acts of betrayal. Betraying a friend and in the process betraying yourself. He knew all about that.

You stay loyal to what increasingly disappoints you. It happens all the time.

Who's to say we can't have many loves and many identities? we can hold more in our heads than we think.

They were like an iceberg, it occurred to me, my father the seven-sights that was under the water and my mother the luminous portion riding the waves. But no, they were two icebergs: solitary phenomena, impressive, independent, known only to themselves. I felt their hidden seven-eighths inside me as a dark bulkiness whose outlines I was always trying to map.

Hearts don't burst. They keep on expanding. There's no end to it.

Where do they come from, these things that say more than we know and more than we intend?

This is the way of long and empty roads: nearly forgotten things surface and singing voices improve.

They were like an iceberg, it occurred to me, my father the seven-eighths that was under the water and my mother the luminous portion riding the waves. But no, they were two icebergs: solitary phenomena, impressive, independent, known only to themselves. I felt their hidden seven-eighths inside me as a dark bulkiness whose outlines I was always trying to map.

She remembers reaching into her schoolbag for the letter the way you reach for a second piece of cake if it remains on the table long enough. You do it without thinking, even though you've been thinking of nothing else.

What we lose is any sense that life is alive, she thought. The days follow one after the other and everything passes us by. Then along comes someone who looks at us kindly, as if we were worth noticing, and life quickens.

You say to yourself, 'Have I kidded myself all these years. Does what I care about really matter? Is (my opinion) important? On a scale of one to ten, would it even register?' And instead of not caring, you decide to care even more.