Quotes from Elizabeth Berg

I stood looking at it, and a thousand things occurred to me about the way that even in bitterness and confusion and anger, my parents love for each other endured. I saw that when I was looking at them, I was only seeing the tip of the iceberg. They belonged to each other more that they belonged to us.

Let others bring knowledge of anatomy and physiology, of pharmacology and statistics. What Lainey brings to her husband is faith. Hope. And an abiding love.

Deep inside is a voice wanting to taunt her, to tell her she is undeserving of it, to not trust it because it won't last, good things never last. Or it tells her she will fuck up and lose everything. But she's gotten better at tuning that voice out.

Everybody likes outlaws. Everybody wants to look at them, like they are in the zoo.

every so often, just to keep

are pinched tightly together, she attempts a smile. Arthur can't help it; he thinks she looks constipated.

How come you can't give with both hands, Mom? How come you have to give with one and take away with the other?

that's it. That's what you need to do in your marriage. You need to give what you want. And don't expect so much. That only sets you up for disappointment. If you expect anything, expect that marriage will be hard, that it will be work. And expect that the pleasures will be erratic and often small, but they'll turn out to mean more than you know.

things that suggest themselves in sleep almost always work out.

bound to, and the ties to such families live in our hearts.

I see where all this success has led me. Now I want to see what it's kept me from.

Some people have no more burden than an avocado going bad.

Martha Stewart these days. She supposes it could be a gay man, that might be a nice change.

there are times when you have to hurt badly in order to move. Otherwise, you'll stay in a place you've outgrown.

Birds are everywhere, singing their hearts out every morning, including a bachelor mockingbird, who courts the ladies with his playlist of imitative calls.

It's good to see untended things thriving.

She thinks it was Margaret Atwood who said that wanting to meet a writer because you like their work was like wanting to meet a duck because you like pâté. So

He looks like a man who is stricken, trying not to look stricken. He

he was learning a lot about the kind of loneliness some people endured. He

dying for something to finally come.

There is a lot of satisfaction, a lot of joy, that can come from doing something you love and that you're good at

Love does not have legs," he slowly read, his finger moving along. "It does not have arms. But it move mountains." He put the paper down at his side

loved that he wasn't afraid of my mother, that he seemed to see past everything and acknowledge her as a person. It was a rare thing. Brooks had gotten all excited and said yes, that was right, he'd thought about that himself, he'd get to work on a design for it at the store tomorrow.

anomaly, when in fact it's how the girl usually eats: head down, minimal conversation, maximum speed in clearing what she'll eat from her plate.