Bette Greene > Quotes

“Even if you forget everything else I want you to always remember that you are a person of value, and you have a friend who loved you enough to give you his most valued possession.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“Like the Bible tells us, when a man will lay down his life for a friend, well, then there ain't no greater love in this here world than that.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“It seems to me that a man who is incapable of humor is capable of cruelty.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“And marking off time struck me as something like counting empty spaces—spaces you know can't ever be filled.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“What do you know about sooner or later? Is a moment only a moment when you're in pain?”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“I wondered if a blessing is still a blessing if it lasts for only a little while.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“Keep in mind that life produces no maestros, only students of varying shades of ineptitude.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“A person's got to think, otherwise that person's no better than a trained seal balancing a ball on his nose. If only that seal could think, he'd know he was making a thousand children laugh.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“It was like that. Sometimes I'd go for a period—days or weeks—without feeling the full sweep of my loss, and then as unexpected as a thunderclap, the realization would rip the protective coating from my senses. Maybe that's the way it is with trick knees and aging griefs. Totally pain free one moment and absorbingly painful the next.”
― Bette Greene, Morning Is a Long Time Coming

“I believe that love is better than hate. And that there is more nobility in building a chicken coop than in destroying a cathedral.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“And taking care of somebody else made me feel good. Like discovering you're more than you thought you were. More even than you hoped to be. ”
― Bette Greene, Morning Is a Long Time Coming

“Fun, like champagne bubbles, can't completely fill you up.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“Why is it I'm always so quick to believe that people are thinking...believing the worst about me?”
― Bette Greene, Morning Is a Long Time Coming

“All I know is that growing up hurts too much. Growing down is what I'd really like to do. Be little enough again so it would be perfectly natural to be protected from the wind and the rain—and the world.”
― Bette Greene, Morning Is a Long Time Coming

“The ways of the Lord are filled with wonder and mystery.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“When people's emotions are involved they don't want to listen.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“The secret is in absolutely refusing to let the river beat you down. If I had to, I'd measure my progress in inches. One more inch I've swum—one less inch to swim. Once you know the secret, then nobody's river can bring you down.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“But don't go thinking that I'm critical of you, Anton, because really I'm not. Not a bit! It's just that you're not here. I'm alone and I'm frightened and you're not here. And you're not ever going to be here for me.”
― Bette Greene, Morning Is a Long Time Coming

“That's when I saw—cleary saw—that there was more than one mountain in my life. Some could be seen and some couldn't be, but just the same, they were all out there. All out there waiting for me.”
― Bette Greene, Morning Is a Long Time Coming

“Longevity can't be the only test of love.”
― Bette Greene, Morning Is a Long Time Coming

“Six years is plenty long enough to soothe the tearing anguish of...death, but maybe no amount of time is enough to soothe something that is no longer there. Something like an emptiness that can never be filled because it's only a bit of space carved out of air.”
― Bette Greene, Morning Is a Long Time Coming

“Maybe...in a way, this coffee reminds me of something. Maybe...maybe only a philosopher or a mad man would make this connection, but it's a little like life. I mean it's powerful going down and that doesn't even take into account the aftertaste, which really takes getting used to.”
― Bette Greene, Morning Is a Long Time Coming

“But will somebody please tell me what's a person to do when they're too afraid of life to live and too afraid of death to die?”
― Bette Greene, Morning Is a Long Time Coming

“Folks keep forgetting that wishing don't make nothing so, but prayer sometimes do.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“Sometimes when a person be thinking about one thing it don't mean they is mad about another thing.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“One thing you can say about him is that he's appreciative. He's just happy having someone to sit with.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“But you, Pearl, never liked anything once it was yours.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“The secret is in absolutely refusing to let the river beat you down.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier

“Look inside yourself and you'll find a world of things (a world of your own experiences)worth writing about.”
― Bette Greene

“My father chose acquiescence and life rather than resistance and death. Not a very admirable choice, but a very human one.”
― Bette Greene, Summer of My German Soldier