Quotes from Susan Wittig Albert

Music keeps time and defies time, simultaneously.

If I'd known how the week was going to turn out I would have sent it back first thing Monday and asked for a refund.

I'm sure of one thing," she said earnestly. "It hurts to—to let go of anything beautiful. But something will come to take its place, something different, of course, but better. The future's always better than we can possibly think it will be . . . We ought to live confidently. Because whatever's ahead, it's going to be better than we've had.

I always thought that romantic comedies were silly," Myra May said. "But I've changed my mind. The world is pretty grim. People need something to smile about.

how much I have to give, and it's got to be enough, damn it.

But between then and now, I had met McQuaid. I had lived with him and learned that sustainable love doesn't grow out of superheated physical passion, but out of simply holding hands and holding on, day in and day out. I'd learned that "good" really is enough, not because you're settling for something less, but because "fantastic" and "incredible" burn you out emotionally, just as life in the fast lane bums you out physically.

Brother Cadfael was invented by Ellis Peters," I explained. "He's a fictional twelfth-century monk who grows herbs and solves murders.

I suspect I shall love you, she wrote with a wry understanding, as long as you do me, at least, and perhaps a little bit longer.

It isn't money that moves the world," she wrote to Crane in 1966. "It is faith, conviction, ardor, fanaticism in action.

When we adopt a professional identity, we are encouraged to think of it as our entire identity and we have little time or energy to explore and develop other aspects of our personalities. The career culture places little premium on the quality of roundedness, but we cannot be whole people without being rounded.

suppose the sisters are my garden," she said. "They are the growing things I am meant to cultivate and serve." A twinkle came and went and her voice grew determined. "I will simply have to be firm about my own priorities, that's all.

I once read that the sociologist Jane Addams called this burden the "family claim," two words that explain it well enough: a bond—no, a bondage, braided of strands of guilt, duty, and affection.

trivial incidents can loom large and threatening in a community that's closed off from the outside. If you live in the teapot, the tempest fills your entire world.

wanted to say that Marie's vocation must have been pretty shaky to start with, but it would have sounded heartless. And Rose was living with the truth as she believed

There was no point in questioning her version of the story.

maffle confused. Reet maffled me. It confused me greatly.

lemon-mint monarda, which looks like purple pagodas and makes an effective insect repellent and a tangy tea; brown-eyed Susans, whose root juice the Cherokee used to treat earache;

One person's weed is another person's wildflower. ~

with Under Secretary of State Stettinius, visiting

whatever is ahead will be better than what you have now.

They went up on the front porch and Verna rang the doorbell. It was one of the old-fashioned ones with a brass handle that you twisted—

Paste on your brightest smile and pretend that everything was just fine, and sooner or later, it would be. Or near enough.

Win this war? Of course Americans will win this war. This is only a war; there is more than that. Five generations of Americans have led the Revolution, and the time is coming when Americans will set this whole world free.

I understood why it might seem to Dawn as if I were yielding my freedom to provide a home for John. But I wasn't, not really. I was choosing, freely, to commit my time, my work, my attention, my life-energy to the boy. In choosing, I was exercising my freedom.