Quotes from Jeanne Ray

We've all got our own areas of expertise.

I could, for the first time in maybe thirty years, make my own decision, trust it, and move forward.

I never knew people could be afraid of good news too. I realized that good news took you places you didn't know anything about. It changed everything as much as bad news.

The truth, we realize as we get older, is a very complicated pastiche of feelings and facts, of what can and cannot be said. It's different for everyone.

We had found the place from which we were all lit from within, and oh, we were shining.

I don't eat that much cake, but I never turn down a slice.

There's a perfectly good chance that this is a day you're going to remember for the rest of your life. This is the day when you got your second chance, when everything changed.

So maybe you should try to find an answer for yourself instead of waiting around to see what Sam's going to do. Doing something is always easier than waiting.

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Five minutes later she came back to the car wearing low fitted gray pants, high-heeled black boots, a white T-shirt, and a long black nylon coat that flapped behind her like a graceful set of wings. She had on eyeliner and her hair was pulled back into a severe ponytail. She looked like a rock star or a publicist for rock stars.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other word would smell as sweet." —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE, Romeo and Juliet

Their son went to the idol-worshiping, uniform-wearing Catholic school

A prejudice can be a lovely thing to have, which is exactly why so many people have them in the first place. A prejudice is a simplification: Every member of this group is exactly the same and therefore I never have to think about any of them. What a time-saver!

Maybe he's feeling unseen," she said. "It's possible that that's the lesson in all of this, not who sees you but who you can learn to see.

You're not going to do anything, to fix anything," Irene said as she drove me to the office. "You're just going to bear witness to his life. I think sometimes that's the greatest gift we can give one another.

A slice of cake never made anyone fat. You don't eat the whole cake. You don't eat a cake every day of your life. You take the cake when it is offered because the cake is delicious. You have a slice of cake and what it reminds you of is someplace that's safe, uncomplicated, without stress. A cake is a party, a birthday, a wedding. A cake is what is served on the happiest days of your life.

Cakes have gotten a bad rap. People equate virtue with turning down dessert. There is always a person at the table...No, really, I couldn't...Everyone who is pressing a fork into that first tender layer looks at the person who declined the plate, and they all think, That person is better than I am. That person has discipline. But that isn't a person with discipline, that is a person who has completely lost touch with joy.

I wasn't so inclined to tell anyone else in my family about my plan. It was very new and felt about as vulnerable as a day-old mouse, its eyelids still sealed shut.

You're just going to bear witness to his life. I think sometimes that's the greatest gift we can give one another.

Had I ever spent the day in our neighborhood public high school as an invisible woman while my children were still enrolled there, I no doubt would have insisted on home schooling.

I first noticed I was missing on a Thursday.

I have a vested interest in this thing because I want to see you happy. What you need to ask yourself is this: Are you a better person when you're with him? Are you kinder or smarter or happier? Do you think you do more good in the world? One man can be perfectly fine but maybe he doesn't bring out what's good in you, in which case I suggest you not be with him. But if you find a man who makes you better then you need to listen to that.

We are tanks and guns. We are force of history. We will crush them beneath our heels like bugs.

I want to try to figure out what I'm supposed to do, what I might be good at. I really want to be good at something, to feel passionate about it.