Quotes About Understanding

Olive can understand why Chris has never bothered having many friends. He is like her that way, can't stand the blah-blah-blah. And they'd just as soon blah-blah-blah about you when your back is turned.

we kind of know who we are, without knowing it.

What is it that William knew about me and that I knew about him that caused us to get married?

She thought how she had passed by him when he'd asked for a hug, how she had seen her mother do that to him, too, only sometimes Anita would touch his shoulders and kiss the air beside his cheek. Maybe Julie was right

sometimes just feel sorry for everyone in this whole wide world?" And

It seemed the older he grew - and he had grown old - the more he understood that he could not understand this confusing contest between good and evil, and that maybe people were not meant to understand things here on earth.

naming things can be helpful.

Everyone, she understood, was mainly and mostly interested in themselves. Except Sibby had been interested in her, and she had been terribly interested in him. This was the skin that protected you from the world—this loving of another person you shared your life with.

It's odd how the mind does not take in anything until it can.

It's not my job to make readers know what's a narrative voice and not the private view of the author

Anita's face got blank, like she couldn't find the expression to put on it.

My mother, because she was my mother, had great gravity in my young life. In my whole life. I did not know who she was, and I did not like who she had been. But she was my mother, and so some part of me had continued to believe things she had said.

To listen to a person is not passive. To really listen is active

I need to say: This is the question that has made me a writer; always that deep desire to know what it feels like to be a different person.

we all love imperfectly.

The hit-thumb theory.

David in really concrete ways. He slipped and slid in my mind, like he would not hold still. I could not understand it.

Cindy looked up at this woman before her; she saw in her eyes a distinct light. "I can call you Olive. Hello, Olive." Cindy looked around and said, "Here, pull up that chair.

He said slowly, "Bobby Burgess." There was a faint smile to his mouth. "King of the profound.

These words rolled over Suzanne with a swiftness, as though something true had been said but she couldn't catch it.

the way people can love those they barely know, and how abiding that love can be, and also how deep that love can be, even when—as in her own case—it was temporary. She

I said on the phone to my mother, "I think I'm going to write the story of the Burgess kids." "It's a good one," she agreed. "People will say it's not nice to write about people I know." My mother was tired that night. She yawned. "Well, you don't know them," she said. "Nobody ever knows anyone.

Angie se dio cuenta de que había comprendido algo demasiado tarde y que la vida debía de ser eso, comprender algo cuando ya era demasiado tarde.

I felt terrible for this man who used to be my husband. We talked a long time about Estelle and Bridget, and then a little bit about our girls; he asked that he be the one to tell Chrissy and Becka about Estelle leaving, and I said, Of course.