Quotes from Elizabeth Berg

That's life. You're born, and you get a ride on the Whirligig

mostly, you only make a change, the balding chinese man tells me. I stare at him for a moment, uncomprehending, wondering if perhaps he is offering advice,then realize he is talking about money: I am to make change . ? Elizabeth Berg, Open House

But finally my own version of God came to me in a dream, complete with a name: Corambe. He was a warm and compassionate being with a tender and unwavering regard for me. He had the humanity of Jesus and the radiant beauty of the angel Gabriel. He was graceful and poetic and ever attentive to my feelings. And though he was a male, he nonetheless dressed oftentimes in women's clothes.

One thing about doing this kind of work, you develop a keen appreciation for the fact that you can walk. And see the sky. And feel the air on your face. And that you can check high and low and no, nothing in your body is hurting, not one thing. I

One good thing about someone really liking something you have is that you appreciate it yourself all over again.

This is not a novel about a woman leaving home, but rather a human being finding her way back.

There's always hope when a kid—or an adult, for that matter—likes to read.

Isn't life funny. It could drive you crazy if you thought about it too much. Turn this way and that happens. Turn that way and this happens.

Souls are ageless and care nothing for external circumstances.

I could still taste and smell and hear and see," she said. "I could still learn and I could still teach. I could still love and be loved. I had my mind and my spirit. And I had you.

I understood, that he was right in asking to be cremated. For if he was nowhere, he could be everywhere. As in, with me.

Instinctively, the spider spins the web; just as automatically, the human shields the heart.

Japanese tea ceremony; a way of honoring oneself by putting another's needs first, the joy that could be found in intimate service...A conversation we'd had one night on the way home from a movie. I remember that night he'd put toothpaste on my brush before his own, then bowed, I smiled, but I'd understood too that such small gifts were one seed that blossomed in two hearts.

Oh, what I want to do is hand my life over to someone else. That's all. And they could rearrange everything into something that would make sense.

I LIKE WHEN YOU WALK far enough that a kind of relaxation happens and you can be inside the rhythm of your feet. Your brain shifts like a car; you settle down, look around, and feel ah. In a more slow-motion way, you see where you are. And where I am is outside and free, on a summer day. There are times you know

There's nothing like getting in trouble to make you feel young.

Already I've seen that when you're pulled away from your normal routine, it's as though air and sunlight come into your brain and do a little housecleaning.

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. Thank God. The

Oh, why isn't there a Community Center for People Who Need a Little Something? If people would only tell the truth about the way they felt, it would be busy all the time. There could be folding chairs arranged in groups, people sitting there saying, "I don't know, I just wanted to come here for a while." I

John strums the guitar and begins to sing, "When I die / don't put me in the ground / Put my ashes in the ashtray / and drive me around." He sings the word around like James Taylor does, with a long a. Iris laughs. "Did you write that?" "Nope. A genius songwriter named Warren Nelson wrote that.

Kids don't really see old people. A lot of people don't.

We catch what we can. We walk past what we lose for the promise of more, just ahead.

Well, I was just going to say that it seems one of the things you have to do in order to finally grow up is to let that what-my-parents-did-to-me stuff go.

IF YOU COULD LIVE ONE day in your life over again and change the outcome of something that happened that day, what day would it be?