Quotes from Elizabeth Berg

What she knows now is that no one is ever through with love. No one ever should be.

You are where I unlock myself, where I say that I have often put down my wooden spoon to stare out the kitchen window to see the men I thought were magic for their story-telling or their way of walking, or the ones I was so strongly sexually attracted to, even though they weren't good people - at least not for me.

His mother said, Oh, it's miserable to love, Johnny, I'm sorry to tell you so. Miserable for me, anyway, because I feel it too hard. And what happens then? What do you think? You go from the lovely direct to the pain - you can't help it.

Divorce is a series of internal earthquakes, that's what it is, one after the other.

The heart is a small muscle with tremendous strength;

Men were ever men.

and there is such honesty and innocence to her voice I want to hold her. The bedside lamplight is a rich golden color, and it is falling on her face in a way that makes it seem gilded. For a moment, L.D. looks to me like an angel. Another case of illusion only being the larger truth.

Sometimes, just when you think you're going to die from pain, rage steps in to save you. There's only so much room in a human heart.

little disappointments seem like paper cuts; they can bother you more than the big things do.

This is the thing about strong people: you can mostly be scared of them but sometimes the way they are makes you feel safe.

Life has its way, and it seems to me now that the object might only be to learn how to be graceful, to understand the value of a deep kind of acceptance.

a great many ills of adults might be cured by a nap or a good meal or a bit of timely reassurance.

Lincoln sits on the chair and removes his shoes. Then he climbs in bed beside his mother, who does not respond. Jason hopes no one comes in and tells Lincoln to get off the bed. Because he would have to kill that person. He sits in the chair and watches as Lincoln touches his mother's hand, then holds it. The puppy has a name, he tells her. Nothing. Lincoln moves closer to Abby and closes his eyes.

HE REMEMBERS NOW WITH SOMETHING LIKE A FULL-BODY FLUSH, HE REMEMBERS WHAT IT MEANS TO SHARE SOMETHING WITH SOMEONE, THE PARTICULAR ALCHEMY THAT CAN LIGHT THINGS UP.

I'll love you forever in darkness and sun, I'll love you past when my whole sweet life is done

That's what life is, at its best. A confession club: people admitting to doubts and fears and failures. That's what brings us closer to one another, our imperfections.

emotions that fuel love are ageless; they live in our heart, and therefore operate independently of our bodies.

He supposes a great many ills of adults might be cured by a nap or a good meal or a bit of timely reassurance. But adults complicate everything. They are by nature complicators. They learned to make things harder than they need to be and they learned to talk way too much.

Everybody has thoughts that shame them. You can't control them coming in, but you don't have to let them all out. That's the crux of it.

The important thing is to keep trying. And to apologize when you need to.

When Lucille was a girl, a carnival came to town one summer and they had a ride called the Whirligig. You sat in some wooden contraption that jerked you here, there, and everywhere. One minute you'd be going forward, the next backward or sideways or tilted over so far you thought you might fall out. It was never still and you had no idea what might come next. That's life. You're born, and you get a ride on the Whirligig.

I look in the mirror now, and even if I lost weight, there's just...Theres' nothing I can do. It's over. My bodyness. My attractiveness in my body. I can diet forever but it will never make me like I was.

First of all, I want you to know that I believed in the cause for which I died. No war is won without sacrifice.

Patience is not only a virtue; it is a form of grace