Donna Ball > Quotes

“Motherhood is a choice you make everyday, to put someone else's happiness and well-being ahead of your own, to teach the hard lessons, to do the right thing even when you're not sure what the right thing is...and to forgive yourself, over and over again, for doing everything wrong.”
― Donna Ball, At Home on Ladybug Farm

“All my life, I thought I was this independent woman. I was on all the right committees, made speeches for all the right causes, traveled all over the world. I had my little part-time job, I made all my own decisions, but . . . there was always someone there to fall back on when things went bad. Funny, how after so many years of marriage you don’t think about how much you depend on the other person until . . . well, until they’re gone. And then of course there’s just the whole system in the city. Your doctor, your pharmacist, your plumber, your vet . . . there’s always someone there. You never have to find out . . . how much you can’t do.”
― Donna Ball, A Year on Ladybug Farm

“Half the time your kids end up hating you for at least 5 of their teenage years[.] And don't ever expect anything so mundane as a thank you”
― Donna Ball, At Home on Ladybug Farm

“You’re not born with a walk like that. You have to earn it.”
― Donna Ball, A Year on Ladybug Farm

“She was the quintessential twenty-first-century woman: She could build a high-rise in a Chanel suit and Jimmy Choos, give lessons in multitasking, and freeze the heart of the coldest competitor with a single unblinking gaze over the rim of her ebony-framed reading glasses. But that persona was like a bodysuit that she pulled on at eight in the morning and peeled out of at five in the afternoon.”
― Donna Ball, A Year on Ladybug Farm

“Mothers have to pretend to be perfect[.] If we didn't, anarchy would rule the world. But most of the time we're just doing the best we can and trying to get better at it everyday”
― Donna Ball, At Home on Ladybug Farm

“...when the Gods finished creating woman, they stood back and looked at what they'd done. They had given her a body strong enough to run a marathon, a mind fast enough to do six things at once, a heart big enough to love even while it was breaking, hands that could paint a masterpiece or feed a family or write a symphony. And they were afraid, because they saw that what they made was stronger than they were. They knew they had to create a secret weapon, one thing they could use to destroy her. So they gave her children.”
― Donna Ball, Vintage Ladybug Farm

“Name me one thing,” Lindsay insisted, “one single thing that men did right.” “Okay,” Cici said, “I’m game. They tamed the Wild West. Without men—big, ugly, lice-infested, gun-totin’, rotten-toothed, foulmouthed, bigoted, brawling men complete with all their greed, gold mining, railroad technology, and STDs, Hollywood would not be the multibillion-dollar industry it is today and the world would be deprived of such cultural masterpieces as Dumb and Dumber.”
― Donna Ball, A Year on Ladybug Farm

“smelled like it was laced with white wine and a hot sandwich that they called grilled cheese, but which was really three kinds of exotic French cheeses melted onto a buttery brioche with caramelized onions and apples. It wasn’t something”
― Donna Ball, Deadfall

“none of them were happy.”
― Donna Ball, Smoky Mountain Tracks

“here,”
― Donna Ball, Flash

“way,”
― Donna Ball, A Flash of Shadow