Quotes from Roger Rosenblatt

The only reason I wanted 'Making Toast' as the title is that it is a simple gesture of moving on. Every morning there's the bread and you make the toast and you start the day.

The God worth worshipping is the one who pays us the compliment of self - regulation, and we might return it by minding our own business.

Uncle Scrooge preferred to let the poor die "and decrease the surplus population." Scrooge may not have had God on his side, but his arithmetic was impeccable.

Whatever brief delights it provides, mere strangeness in poetry and prose eventually leaves us cold, especially when we suspect the writer is stretching for effect to avoid the actual life before his eyes.

Blame is especially useful in situations in which there is no apparent villain-those moments that prove, despite our advancement of learning, how susceptible we are to high winds and wet roads.

If you need three adjectives to describe something, then you've probably chosen the wrong something.

Why, for example, do the great writers use anticipation instead of surprise? Because surprise is merely an instrument of the unusual, whereas anticipation of a consequence enlarges our understanding of what is happening.

They do not leave home without American Express. ... Blame the moral carelessness that parents pass off as the gift of freedom as they cut their children loose like colorful kites and wish them an exciting flight.

A library should be like a pair of open arms.

Why do we write? "To make suffering endurable To make evil intelligible To make justice desirable and . . . to make love possible

There may be no more pleasing picture in the world than that of a child peering into a book - the past and the future entrancing each other.

Be kind for everyone you meet carries a great burden.

Children love to be alone because alone is where they know themselves and where they dream.

Do not keep company with people who speak of careers. Not only are such people uninteresting in themselves; they also have no interest in anything interesting. . . . Keep company with people who are interested in the world outside themselves. The one who never asks you what you are working on; who never inquires as to the success of your latest project; who never uses the word career as a noun -- he is your friend.

Grief. The state of mind brought about when love, having lost to death, learns to breathe beside it. See also love.

Somewhere, I am sure, a calm, quiet place awaits me where I may do something worthwhile again. Another island, perhaps. Or a little cottage near the sea, far removed from developers, removed from Lapham. And, there is always Vermont. For everyone, in every time of despairing optimism, there is always Vermont.

In every heartbreak beauty intrudes.

But in the time since she died, I have been aware, every minute, of my love for her. She lives in my love.

Truman Capote on Jack Kerouac: "That's not writing, it's typing.

Male and Female Compatibility Rules: a. She's right. b. He's really thinking about nothing. Really.

There is justice in a detective story, and none in madness. And while there is danger in a detective story, it eventually is put to rest, which distinguishes a detective story from life, where the mysteries are illimitable. H

Never miss an opportunity to do nothing

made each other alert to the world's surprises, pleasant, foolish, and tragic.

What keeps me from seeking Catherine's help is that unlike other psychological problems, what happened to Amy, and to all of us, is real. The monster is real. And while there may be strategies that help Ginny and me feel a little better rather than a little worse, we will never feel right again. No analysis or therapy will change that.