Quotes from Carolyn Parkhurst

Sometimes I wonder how we can be so sure what it is God sees. How arrogant we are, I sometimes think, to imagine there's someone watching us every minute. To think our every action matters that much.

The simplest thing that can be said about any person, any relationship, is that it's not simple at all.

I can't take one breath, not one single breath, without knowing that I love you.

I'm not going to feel guilty for wanting the things that everyone wants.

Your only job is creating a life that contains a story worth telling.

Go on,"Lexy said. "What do you want to be today?

This is happening; this is not fiction. And the thing about life? It doesn't have texture at all. Go ahead, feel the space around you. Do it now. See? It's nothing but air.

The tragedy of puppies, taken from their families, all of them, never to see each other again. This is the sadness we inflict on the beasts we love.

Imagine that your child is born with wings.

Walking out of the store with my parrot & sushi, I feel hideous, like everything I've done must be written on my skin. I walk through the streets of Tokyo with my cameraman behind me, knowing that anyone who looks at me will be able to see myshame, my sorrow, my regrets as ugly as scars. -Cassie

It's not the content of out dreams that gives our second heart its dark color; it's the thoughts that go through our heads in those wakeful moments when sleep won't come. And those are the things we never tell anyone at all.

Ah, the Gilligan's Island conundrum: why were the Howells on a crappy three-hour excursion cruise in the first place, when they could've been on their diamond-encrusted yacht? And why did they bring so many clothes?" -Riley

It occurs to me for the first time that Lorelei is getting older—she must be eight years old by now—and that I may not have unlimited time to conduct my research. Or to enjoy the quiet pleasure of her company. I will lose her someday, that much is certain, and it makes me ache to think of it. But, as all dog owners must, I put the thought quickly out of my mind.

Life is never what you expect it to be. Sex has more to do with salt than sweetness. The sky is white as often as it's blue.

Anyway, I thought, it's wishful thinking, all this talk of ghosts. If the dead wandered among us, their spirits still present on this earth, what need would we have for grief? Scary as it is, it's what we hope for. How else can we go on living?

That's the fundamental flaw in the illusion that writers like to maintain, the idea that we can craft anything approaching the truth. No matter how richly we imagine, no matter how vividly we set the scene, we never come close to the unambiguous realness of the moment itself.

It may not be terribly fruitful to rearrange deck chairs on the Titanic, but that doesn't mean it isn't satisfying.

You may know that a cascade of water can wear away stone, but you can't predict what shape the rock will take at any given moment.

The unexpected thing, the miraculous thing, is when a car that's been shattered in a crash, that's been left in the rain to rust for years at a time, can be coaxed to growl to a start and slowly begin rolling down the hill.

I lie on my bed and slip into a troubled, bereft sleep full of falling women and the barking of dogs always out of sight.

Perhaps, and this is where my breath catches in my throat, perhaps she let herself fall. The day was hers to choose and perhaps in that treetop moment when she looked down and saw the yard, the world, her life, spread out below her, perhaps she chose to plunge toward it headlong. Perhaps she saw before her a lifetime of walking on the ruined earth and chose, instead, a single moment in the air.

Imagine if our lives were treated as carefully as the rest of history. Imagine if we were documented as conscientiously, preserved as gently. Each birth at least as important as a naval victory. Each death a national tragedy. There are plenty of ways to remember someone: a park bench, a colossus, an epic poem. Your only job is creating a life that contains a story worth telling.

They're too young to understand how much of life is shaped by never the same.

a couple of fountains and four giant slabs of marble containing Roosevelt quotes. They're labeled "Nature," "Youth," "The State," and "Manhood." "They put those up in the '60s," says Tilly. "I think it was kind of a sexist decade." You