Quotes from Lori Lansens

I felt the weight of my father's failures and the absence of my mother and I wondered who would teach me, or if a guy could learn on his own, what it means to be a man.

You're just not always in a place for as long as you thought you'd be.

You think about these words final last never a lot, and there are not many things, when you come right down to it, that you'll be happy to see the end of.

There's too much information out there. And not enough smart people.

Fatal is fatal, but it doesn't have to be all downhill.

It's not that you like being sad, but you start to see the value of it. You don't judge sadness so harshly.

In some ways, Mary thought, Irma lived her whole life anxious to get things over with, as if she knew the end of her story all along, and didn't feel the middle pages worth the effort of a read.

Mary reached into her vinyl purse and extracted one of the novels, each of whose covers had promised laughter and tears. She began to read and, finding a masterful storyteller behind its pages, was instantly and gratefully transported to another place.

The strangest thing about strange things is that they're only strange when you hear about them or think about them later, but never when you're living them.

You don't know if you ruined your kids or if they were born that way.

Feeling the wind rush in through the broken window, Mary thought of how Gooch would say, "You're letting out the heat," when she kept the door open, and "You're letting out the cold," when her nose was in the Kenmore. It struck her that there must be some other door left open through which she'd let out Gooch.

It was Aunt Lovey's belief that all ordinary people led extraordinary lives, but just didn't notice.

How could she have been so ungrateful? She envied the French singer who regretted nothing. She regretted all.

you don't like something about yourself, change it. If you're okay with it, you gotta own it. There's nothing in between.

People don't finish, Rose. People stop. To finish is to say okay, now it's right, never I'm going to change it. To stop is to say okay, it's not perfect, but I have to go to something else.

The climb speaks to our character, but the view, I think, to our souls. The

Plus vieux, tu comprendras que, malgré les apparences, il n'y a pas de bon ou mauvais moment. Il y a un moment, point final.

Write,' she said, 'as if you'll never be read. That way you'll be sure to tell the truth.

I feel, holding books, accommodating their weight and breathing their dust, an abiding love. I trust them, in a way that I can't trust my computer, though I couldn't do without it. Books are matter. My books matter. What would I have done through these years without the library and all its lovely books?

The strangest thing about strange things is that they're only strange when you hear about them or think about them later, but never when you're living them.

If heaven is tolerant and writers are allowed (bunch of liars though they are), I wonder if they gather for coffee to ponder the prose they should have written instead.

What is it about sadness that can be so fulfilling?

If you don't like something about yourself, change it. If you're OK with it, you gotta own it. There's nothing in between.

How cruel it must be for a man to live past his soul.