Quotes from Lori Lansens

Art isn't a product. It's an experience

the only thing left to do is love

The city, no matter how small, is corrupt and unrepentant, while the sun shines brighter in the country, making people more wholesome.

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

When you get older you think of sadness in a different way. You don't judge it so harshly.

Aunt Lovey used to tell me that if I wanted to be a writer, I needed a writer's voice. 'Read,' she'd say, 'and if you have a writer's voice, one day it will shout out, 'I can do that too!

I hum some secret place into being, thinking of this other me, the one that only I can see, a girl called She, who is not We, a girl who I will never be.

Before she closed her eyes tonight, Rose said she regretted that she has not done something heroic in her life. Well, it's not like she can suddenly climb a tree and save a cat, or go to medical school and begin some important cancer research. But Rose has been my sister. I think that's heroic.

In sleep, my sister and I found a common breath. In dreams, we knew the moon.

The most successful people in the most impossible situations are the ones that are sure they're gonna get out of it, and they go on thinking that, even if they die trying.

It was only out on the cold street...that Riley began to feel the full loss of his father. Poppa, he thought, Oh Poppa. He'd grieved him since Christmas when he first took ill...but it was here now, an empty place where once had been Poppa. A quietness to replace Poppa's good voice. A gust of wind that said he was there, not on earth, but in the air. Riley knew he would not be the same man again, for Riley had been Poppa's son and was now only his survivor.

My father used to say there are two kinds of people: the noticers and the noticed

I would not have dreamed back then, could never have imagined, that one day I would be a childless mother too.

I can't exactly say why I've chosen to write about the things that I am writing about. There are doubtless better stories from my life that I am missing, events and escapades I am not wise enough to know were important. If heaven is tolerant and writers are allowed (bunch of liars that they are), I wonder if they gather for coffee to ponder the prose they should have written instead. p 179

Funny how you can measure time by pets that were not even your own.

Regrets. Sure you think about regrets, but it's not regret for the things you've done that occupy you, as much as it is a longing for the things you'll never have a chance to do.

Resilience, thy name is Devine.

In those dangerous narrows grew children who knew too much too young but, sadly, always seemed to learn too little too late.

Uncle Stash said you didn't have to be crazy to to do something stupid, just young.

Wake in bed and know, because dreams are not true, that the sun will be shining and it will not storm today.

Read it slow as you can. It's like a fine meal. You don't want to gulp it, but savor it so you can taste it in your memory when you're lone done.

Regrets serve their purpose. You'll see.

I'm not alone in having obese people in my circle and in my family. I have loved morbidly obese people, and I don't approach obesity with revulsion or judgment but with empathy and compassion.