Quotes from Elizabeth Berg

A man doesn't always make room in his life for appreciating certain things that seem to be under women's auspices, but there's a satisfaction in some of them. The toilet seat, though. Up. And there are other grim pleasures in doing things he didn't used to get to do. Cigar right at the kitchen table. Slim Jims for dinner.

The dishes we ate from were not translucent china but, rather, the heavy white plates common in less expensive cafés. Still, the food served on them was prepared by my mother, and I believed then, as I do now, that it makes a difference in taste when one's thoughts and feelings and hands are employed in what one serves.

The filing of citizenry out from coffee shops always reminds Iris of cattle coming out of a barn in the morning, in their slow, blinking line. Not the most flattering of images, but for her, it's calming, suggesting a kind of optimism about at least one thing in the world. A new day. A new start.

If one is going to praise children's honesty when their words please, one must tolerate it when the words do not.

There was playing with fire, and then there was setting yourself on fire.

luminous in their joy. There are photos of

someone had her back, whether he was right with her or not. If he was in the world, he was watching over her. Nola comes closer

but how nice it was for that brief period of time to feel like someone had her back, whether he was right with her or not. If he was in the world, he was watching over her.

certain life circumstances make for people who walk with a psychic limp for all of their days. Never mind the progress they seem to make, peel back a few delicate layers and there it is: a stubborn doubting of worth; an inability to stand with conviction behind anything without wondering if they should be standing there at all; a sense that if they move in this direction, it's wrong; and if they move in that direction, that's wrong, too.

You take one step of pure and good intention and the universe accommodates.

sometimes grief made people eat a lot, grief and the realization that life really did come to an end.

Don't ask so many questions. You always ask so many questions. Don't do that. Just...accept things. ...Don't ask questions and don't look back. Believe me you'll be much more content.

knew it in my brain, anyway; but I was nonetheless reminded of it in my heart in these unexpected and most random of ways. I can only describe it as the way you touch something bare-handed that you just took from the oven. Impossible as it seems, every now and

If we look at the path, we do not see the sky. We are earth people on a spiritual journey to the stars. Our quest, our earth walk, is to look within, to know who we are, to see that we are connected to all things, that there is no separation, only in the mind. —Native American

Life is funny, isn't it? Funny in the way you can never predict not only what will happen, but who you'll become.

He said there are times we must let sorrow come, learn the lesson and then move on. He said when you think about it, life is just moments. And you have to have faith that the next good moment is coming right along.

She picked out a pleasing mismatch of dishes from various thrift stores. "They speak the same language," Maddy said, about the dishes. "But they're not all saying the same thing.

He wanted to be the guy standing in the dimness by their kids' beds as Nola kissed them, and then he would kiss them, too. "Night," he'd say. Why did that single word offer so much comfort? He guessed it was because it said so much. Home. Safety. The prospect of another day together as soon as morning came. He wanted to walk down the stairs to the living room afterward, and sit with Nola in the lamplight and talk.

love you forever in darkness and sun, I'll love you past when my whole sweet life is done," he says. Something he

her heart has opened.

Thought it was funny to answer his phone by saying, "You DID?

Sometimes we make choices in our lives. Sometimes our lives make choices for us. I wish for you some harmony in spirit.

It's all broken glass inside me, she once wrote in her journal, when she was in high school. I breathe, and I cut myself.

we) laughed. It was so good to laugh. I felt as though I too were reentering my legitimate self.