Quotes from Julia Glass

Is it 'good' to go on doing the same old oblivious thing, to still enjoy it no matter what? Does perseverance steady the world?

To love me, my family does not need to understand me.

Morty trusted trees far more than he did people. 'You know what a tree can and cannot give you,' he said in one interview. 'It's very straightforward that way. And I am not talking about that cruel Silverstein book, one of the only children's books I've ever thought ought to be banned.

Alan had loved her breakfast pastries best; Charlie craved her pies. He liked them true-blue American, folded roundabout in a blanket of pastry so that when you cut through it, out rushed the captive soft flesh of peaches, apricots, rhubarb, berries. His favorite was a pie she made with Anjou pears and blackberries, the bottom lined with frangipane.

On the phone, we argue. In person, we tend to become sarcastic. Our letters, though, have a touch of romantic collusion.

Sometimes she even thought of animals asleep in a zoo, in their make-believe jungles and savannahs, meticulously cared for by day but, sleeping at night, wild as could be in their dreams, watched by the silent, all-seeing, all-forgiving moon.

They agreed on four flavors of cake- vanilla, maple, orange, and coconut- to alternate, almost randomly, in twenty-one slim layers throughout the seven tiers beneath the one to be saved, the crown of coconut. A syrup infused with ginger would be brushed on the sponge beneath the icing.

Darling,' when Charlie said it, felt like a whirlpool of rapture. Whenever Greenie answered the phone, he would say just that word, and Greenie would say 'You,' which was her way of expressing that he was now the world to her, that he was the one for whom she was always waiting, that he was the high cliff on which she was happy to stand and from which she had come to realize she might, at any moment, jump. Jump with open eyes and outspread arms.

but boys who like the tough sports—boys who are virtually nursed on that potion of hustle, slam, and grunt—they're the ones with the best chance in life.

How odd it felt to share a kitchen most mornings with a man whose face she had seen in the news, without caring, for years. She was no longer intimidated, but sometimes she saw him across the room and thought that he must be a hologram, a figment.

I guess that's how well you know me. You think I like hearing this news." "I'm sorry. This is selfish. I just need to tell someone … outside my life. Get it out of my head, to keep from going nuts, but somewhere safe." She sees me as safe? This brings tears to my eyes. "I trust you, Clem. Are you pissed?

God, Lou. Don't you think I want you to have what you want?" "You're my sister. You're supposed to want those things for me." "You can't have it both ways, Lou. When things get bad, you can't call me—which I'm glad about, I am!—you can't do that and then imply I don't give a shit about you." "That's what I used to think.

None of this Mad Mario showmanship- orange clogs and Bermuda shorts fit for Babar, sweetbreads garnished with squash blossoms stuffed with cheese from the milk of Angora goats who live in the Pyrenees. Litchi sorbet veined with coconut milk and honey from Crete.

In the heavy air of a morning that foretells a blazing afternoon, these absurdist dreams hover, like the musk of an animal that passed the house before dawn. Lethargy, she thinks.

Our neighbors had always thought us vaguely mad to swim in the pond—someone had seen a snapping turtle more than once—but Poppy and I scoffed at their timidity.

I was ridiculed in public school for being smart. A teacher's pet.

I love it when I start a book that is so good that all I want to do is get back to my own writing, in a competitive way.

Somewhat sadly, the survival of many bookstores now depends on selling merchandise other than books.

All the best novels are about one thing: how we go on. The characters must survive the fallout of their own cowardice, folly, denial or misguided passion. They squander what matters most, and still they pick up the pieces.

The books I read, if they intrude on my writing, do so as weather will pass through and touch a landscape - affecting it, yes, but only now and then leaving a permanent mark.

In my head, at least, the business of spinning stories has no closing time. Twists in my characters' lives, glimpses of their secrets, obstacles to their dreams... all arrive unbidden when I'm getting cash at the ATM, walking my son to camp, singing a hymn at a wedding.

I'm not a believer that you have to write every day. If I felt industrious, I'd spend ten hours a week writing. The writing is going on all the time in my head; the trick is to capture it. Showers are great. Traffic jams are great.

Though I didn't quite plan it that way, I had my two sons at just about the same ages my mother saw me and my sister off to college, and my first novel was published when I was 46. This 'tardiness' isn't something I'm proud of, but I'm happy to be an inspiration to others who arrive at these milestones later than most of us do.

I see life as increasingly complex, vivid, colorful, crazy, chaotic. That's the world I write about...the world I live in.