Quotes from Christina Baker Kline

This life of ours can feel an awful lot like waiting

People have maladies of all kinds, she says, and if they have any sense, they don't waste time whining about them. "We all have our burdens to bear," she says. "You know what yours is, now. That's good. You'll never be surprised by it.

It is a terrible thing to find the love of your life, Christina, she says. You know too well what you're missing when it's gone.

Se siente como un payaso de circo que se despierta una mañana y ya no quiere colocarse la nariz de goma roja.

FLOWERS FADE, FREEZE in an early frost, wither on the vine. Trees burst into flame and burn themselves out. Leaves crumble to ash.

Sometimes the least believable stories are the true ones. 1896–1900 My mother drapes a wrung-out cloth across my forehead.

tough and weird is preferable to pathetic and vulnerable...

she knows from experience that tough and weird is preferable to pathetic and vulnerable, and she wears her Goth persona like armor.

If I am honest...I will say that I simply need a warm, dry place to live. I want enough food to eat, clothes, and shoes that will protect me from the cold. I want calmness and order. More than anything, I want to feel safe in my bed.

I learned long ago that loss is not only probable but inevitable.

The child you select is yours for free," he adds, "on a ninety-day trial. At which point, if you so choose, you may send him back.

The most important qualities a human can possess are an iron will and a persevering spirit," Mamey says.

I think she'd prefer pancakes. Do you think she'd like blueberry pancakes? Who doesn't like blueberry pancakes?

When Vivian describes how it felt to be at the mercy of strangers, Molly nods. She knows full well what it's like to tamp down your natural inclinations, to force a smile when you feel numb. After a while you don't know what your own needs are anymore.

It reminds me of The House of the Seven Gables.

Moral allegories about people determined to root out wickedness in others while denying it in themselves.

As I watch her pine casket descend...I try to envision the reunion of a frail eighty year old woman with her decades younger husband and their three sons and am left with the lingering feeling that the places we go in our minds to find comfort have little to do with where our bodies go

Maybe it doesn't matter how much gets done. Maybe the value is in the process—in touching each item, in naming and identifying, in acknowledging the significance of a cardigan, a pair of children's boots. "It's

Sometimes the least believable stories are the true ones.

EPIGRAPH "There was a very strange connection. One of those odd collisions that happen. We were a little alike; I was an unhealthy child that was kept at home. So there was an unsaid feeling between us that was wonderful, an utter naturalness. We'd sit for hours and not say a word, and then she'd say something, and I'd answer her. A reporter once asked her what we talked about. She said, 'Nothing foolish.'" —Andrew Wyeth

See the interlaced strands?' She touched the raised pattern with a knobby finger. 'These trace a never-ending path, leading away from home and circling back. When you wear this, you'll never be far from the place you started.

The hands clasped together symbolize friendship. The heart is love. And the crown stands for loyalty

People think the painting is a portrait, but it isn't. Not really. He wasn't even in the field; he conjured it from a room in the house, an entirely different angle. He removed rocks and trees and outbuildings. The scale of the barn is wrong. And I am not that frail young thing, but a middle-aged spinster. It's not my body, really, and maybe not even my head. He

I am learning to pretend, to smile and nod, to display empathy I do not feel. I am learning to pass, to look like everyone else, even though I feel broken inside.