Quotes from Wally Lamb

Let me tell you something, my wife died for Tuesdays ago. Cancer of the colon. We were married forty-one years. Now you stop feeling sorry for yourself and lose some of that pork of yours. Pretty girl like you - you don't want to do this yourself.

The "what-ifs": they'll do a number on you.

You are a meticulous steward of the pain and injustices people have visited upon you. Or, if you prefer, we could call you a scrupulous coroner.

Rivercrest was purgatory, with wheelchairs.

Our ancestors move along with us, in underground rivers and springs too deep for chaos to reach.

You are a meticulous steward of the pain and injustices people have visited upon you.

Vicarious traumatization. It can happen to those who bear secondary witness to the traumas of others.

When Lary called to say that the story would be published, I was so elated that I picked up my son, now a toddler, and tossed him so far into the air that his head hit the kitchen ceiling. Luckily, it was one of those drop ceilings with the foam-backed pads, so Jared didn't hurt his head. It just disappeared for a second and then came back into view.

Mine is a story of craving. Each memory makes me a child again.

The whole world was crazy; I'd flattered myself by assuming I was a semifinalist.

It is the firstborn's burden to unravel the knots that younger brothers make.

why would white dudes want to change things when they held all the cards?

Sometimes we want something to be true so badly that we convince ourselves that it is true.

Blood banged inside my head. I loved my brother. I hated him. There was no solution to who he was. No getting back who he had been.

Of course, all of the coolest icons overdosed and died years ago, which is just as well. How depressing would it be to see a gray-haired Jimi Hendrix wearing a cardigan sweater and reminiscing about the soundtrack of the Summer of Love?

All I'm saying, Dad, is that I accept that I don't know. But I have faith that my Lord and Savior does, so I'm putting myself in His hands. Humbling myself to a wisdom that's above and beyond me and praying for His guidance.

What are you asking God for?" I joked. "A million dollars? Two million?" "I'm not asking Him for anything," he said. "I'm thanking Him for good food and wine, good health and famiglia.

That's what movies are, right? Thousands of still pictures taken months or years or decades before—streams of images burned onto celluloid that are reeled in front of a lamp and projected onto a screen, allowing us the illusion that they're alive. Flickers of light and dark. Brightness and shadow that won't stand still—like life itself.

People are not like Tupperware, with their lids on securely.

It reminded me that they [the students] were more than just their scholarly shortcomings and gripes about the workload. Each had a history, a set of problems. Each, for better or worse, was anchored to a family.

Once I asked Ma who'd taken the picture, but she couldn't remember. Maybe Ma's death took it, I thought. Maybe it was laughing back at her, knowing everything that would happen, as she posed in happy ignorance. In Ma's young face there was no trace that Anthony Jr. would strangle himself inside her. That her husband would leave, that her daughter would become me.

You were the same person, no matter what state you happened to be stuck breathing in.

You see, everyone thinks they're too good for day-old pastry, like one-third off is charity or something. The world is full of snobs. Snobs and slobs. I ought to write a book.

When he emerged, I'd stand on the stool amidst the steam and the aroma of uncapped Old Spice, watching my face wobble and drip in the medicine cabinet mirror.