Quotes from Rebecca Wells

Taking out the journal she'd packed, and intending to make some preproduction notes on The Women, Sidda began to write instead about the Ya-Yas. Her hand moved across

I shake so hard that freckles jump off my face.

Those eagles, like angels, don't distinguish between work and play. To them, it is all one and the same.

all these other little ringlet-headed girls and break into a dance. Make everyone look at me, only me! But you have to stand in line. All we're supposed to do is stand up here and

She saw night lights in the rooms of the babies who dreamed soft seersucker dreams, drugged happy with the heat, their pink baby bodies curled against worn out cotton, not fearing Hitler yet, their strong, tiny hearts beating in unison with the trees and the creeks and the bayou

Don't think this means I'm giving you all my secrets. There is more to me than you will ever know.

Our Lady of Cheribim Chit-Chat.

I try to believe ,she said that god doesn't give you more than one piece of the story at ounce. You know, the story of your life. Otherwise your heart would crack wider than you could handle. He only crack it enough so you can still walk, like someone wearing a cast. But you've still got a crack running up your side, big enough for a sapling to grow out of. Only no one sees it. Everyone thinks you're one whole piece, and so they treat you maybe not so gentle as they can't see that crack.

From her perch on the crescent of the harvest moon, the Holy Lady looked down and smiled at her imperfect children. The angels attending her that night felt little twinges of longing to be in human form, if for only a few minutes. They wanted to rock, they wanted to roll, they wanted to feel the peculiarly human feeling of having a perfect night in an imperfect world.

Wade Coenen poured her a glass of brandy. 'Theater,' he said. 'Glorious theater. It creates family for all kinds of orphans.

Don't ever worry bout bein holy, babychild. Just keep your eyes wide open except when you sleep. Then let the Lord's mighty vision see you through the night.

Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to.

far as I knew. Never thought one way or the other when Mama used to take her "naps" in the middle of Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner. Never said to myself, Mama's not napping, she's passed-out drunk. Never even questioned

sadness usually does, as soon as I sat down and began to listen. The small press had a correspondingly

What Sidda did not know was how much more singing there was when Vivi was growing up. That's the kind of thing the history books don't tell you. How people sang outdoors all the time.

T]he right way to pray is not to beg, but to picture good things, to banish all bad things from our mind.

Mama parted with these Divine Secrets because I asked her to, Sidda thought. the reason I feel like crying, Sidda realized, is not just because this scrapbook is vulnerable, but because Mama, whether she knows it or not, has made herself so vulnerable to me.

The point is not knowing another person, or learning to love another person. The point is simply this: how tender can we bear to be? What good manners can we show as we welcome ourselves and others in our hearts?

When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.

the page swiftly. Sidda did not stop to correct herself, or to analyze why she was doing this. She simply glanced at the creekbank photo, sat at the cabin's table, and wrote from the heart. Oh, how Mama and the Ya-Yas laughed! I could hear them from the water where I played with

I couldn't wait until my own stroke was strong enough for me to follow in her wake.

I was stupefied. Had she once been a star and her bright burning had dimmed? Maybe because she had us? Or had Mama

saw that pain is part of beauty—that inside of all that music, all that love, all the moonlight and sunlight, are shafts of pain, and we are meant to bear it all.

this architect who everyone misunderstands. I completely forget to ask what she and Charlene are going to laugh about. One evening Mama takes Baylor and Little Shep and Lulu and me to Fred's Hamburger Drive-In where we eat at least