Quotes from Beth Gutcheon

Well. I don't suppose you have to believe in ghosts to know that we are all haunted, all of us, by things we can see and feel and guess at, and many more things that we can't.

I don't suppose you have to believe in ghosts to know that we are all haunted, all of us, by things we can see and feel and guess at, and many more things that we can't.

I wanted this day, the perfect buttery sun like peach ice cream, the speed, the satin leather of the car seat, the fair. Forbidden fruit, a day like no other.

You're never too old to keep failing your children, are you? Why weren't we told this was a life sentence?

Did you know that the origin of the word gossip in English is god-sibling? It's the talk between people who are godparents to the same child, people who have a legitimate loving interest in the person they talk about. It's talk that weaves a net of support and connection beneath the people you want to protect.

Damned no matter what you do. Why do people think knowing secrets is fun?

Youth was a condition defined by the fact that you don't know what you don't know until it's too late.

Raymond, through some curious alchemy of his own, had come really to think a divorce was something you could win, as opposed to a situation in which the wounded attempt to contain loss. She once said to her friend Annie, "It's like fighting over who gets the litterbox after the cat is dead. Raymond has forgotten we ever had a cat; he actually wants the litterbox. Full." She said Annie had laughed and then Martha cried

nobody owns grief

How can you tell a little about your whole child?

But the greater truth is that life is not something you can go into training for.

How quickly a person in pain whom you can't help becomes a reproach. And then, no doubt, a thorn.

Tell us you're afraid, Mrs. Selky. Break down and cry. Let us feel that warm wet wash of pity, that prurient grief, that thrills because it's happened to you and not us. Give it to us, Mrs. Selky.

Sacrifice is a necessary response to evil. You can only shame evil by showing them honor.

In marriage if one partner stays small and quiet in one area of the universe of two, the other may (or must) expand to fill the void.