Quotes from Judith Viorst

My mother would have been so crazy about my grandchildren. She was a fabulous grandmother, and she would have been absolutely crazed as a great-grandmother. I miss that part of her.

Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational - but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?

There is a time to separate from our mother. But unless we are ready to separate-unless we are ready to leave her and be left-anything is better than separation.

Kids need to encounter kids like themselves - kids who can sometimes be crabby and fresh and rebellious, kids who talk back and disobey, tell fibs and get into trouble, and are nonetheless still likable and redeemable.

What kind of grandmother am I? I'm a 'three-dessert' grandmother. I'm a 'let's just skip the bath tonight, honey, watch another video' grandmother.

I could be such a wonderful wife to another wife's husband.

If I could pick one reason why I want to be a writer, it would be connection. In all kinds of ways, I like to be individual and distinct; but when I write, I want to be writing about things that connect me to the people for whom I write.

I wrote 'And Two Boys Booed' several years ago, but we really chased around looking for the perfect illustrator, so it took a while.

Suffering makes you deep. Travel makes you broad. In case I get my pick, I'd rather travel.

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not when someone's saying "I love you.

We have to divide mother love with our brothers and sisters. Our parents can help us cope with the loss of our dream of absolute love. But they cannot make us believe that we haven't lost it.

Lust is what makes you keep wanting to do it, even when you have no desire to be with each other. Love is what makes you keep wanting to be with each other, even when you have no desire to do it.

Infatuation is when you think he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford - but you'll take him anyway.

We will have to give up the hope that, if we try hard, we somehow will always do right by our children. The connection is imperfect. We will sometimes do wrong.

Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands — and then eat just one of the pieces.

You end up as you deserve. In old age you must put up with the face, the friends, the health, and the children you have earned.

One advantage of marriage is that when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again.

Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia.

When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the street, I always hope he's dead.

But it's hard to be hip over thirty When everyone else is nineteen, When the last dance we learned was the Lindy, And the last we heard, girls who looked like Barbra Streisand Were trying to do something about it.

One advantage of marriage, it seems to me, is that when you fall out of love with him, or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you maybe fall in love again.

Strength is the capacity to break a Hershey bar into four pieces with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces.

I think I'll move to Australia.

I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there's gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.