Quotes from Kaye Gibbons

It took me a long time to learn that mistakes aren't good or bad, they're just mistakes, and you clean them up and go on.

I read about writers' lives with the fascination of one slowing down to get a good look at an automobile accident.

But sometimes the hardest things in the world to see are the ones that are right up on you.

My mother told me a million times that Ireland and the Irish people were special, and that the O'Cadhain family in particular was the most blessed of all because it had been imposed upon without cease since the dawn it sprung up in Galway. For centuries they had been in training to have nothing, so everything was more or less working perfectly according to God's plan.

Of course Bridget couldn't afford the trip. Mr. Hoover had been especially rough on Kentucky. but she accumulated more than enough money for her passage. She had gone to each of the children, there were ten, and humiliated them to the point that they sold animals and automobiles and whatever they could find to sell to give their mother money. One son sold half his timber land. She made them feel guilty over not having enough children, not looking after her in her old age, not speaking Gaelic.

She told me the only way I would be happy on Milk Farm Road with my mother would be to turn off the radio. This would eliminate a great deal of temptation.

My daddy is a mistake for a person.

I said to myself Dora, let me tell you a thing or two. There is no Santa Claus. You cannot always count on getting everything you want. And when you wake up that day and Santa has not laid out everything you dreamed of or he might have missed your house completely then you have to be brave and you can come to me and we can talk.

took me a long time to learn that mistakes aren't good or bad, they're just mistakes, and you clean them up and go on.

half the job of finding peace is finding understanding.

A woman's name will always suffice, but if you'll keep your ears open in a room with men and women, you'll hear it's the call used least often.

I might be confused sometimes in my head but it is not something you need to talk about. Before you can talk you have to line it all up in order and I had rather just let it swirl around until I am too tired to think. You just let the motion in your head wear you out. Never think about it. You just make a bigger mess that way.

It took me a long time to learn that mistakes aren't good or bad, they're just mistakes, and you clean them up and go on.

You'll find your one-in-a-million. But you're sharp enough to know there's no point in sludging through the first nine hundred, ninety-nine thousand, and ninety-nine to get to him.

Have you ever felt like you could cry because you know you just heard the most important thing anybody in the world could have spoke at that second?

I could lay here and read all night. I am not able to fall asleep without reading. You have the time when your brain has nothing to do so it rambles. I fool my brain out of that by making it read until it shuts off. I just think it is best to do something right up until you fall asleep.

I could wake her up and ask have you ever been to the ocean? but I already know that answer. She has not. You can tell. It would humble you I whisper to her sleeping if you for one time stood by something stronger than yourself.

I am a great believer in variations on the routine.

Oh, it's no crime to want and need somebody to love and to be loved by and to go and do what you need to do to have that, but its certainly a pity when you want it so badly you'll let it be anybody.

The fact that he had foamed at the mouth immediately upon dying, indicated that he had a great back jam of wishes and desires and truths that were never spoken...out bubbled all the words he had swallowed when he was alive.

This has been such a glorious afternoon -- my heart would not weep if I did not live to see another.

But they get some comfort out of the made up stories. And if that helps them get along maybe I should not poke fun.

You can rest with me until somebody comes to get you. We will not say anything. We can rest.

Folks do not want to see a body disappear before their very eyes. Not me at least.