Susan Patterson > Quotes

“people don’t always give you what you want. They give you what they have to give. But if you stop and think about it, that can be enough.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“without words, her face can convey a million things—all of them disapproving: Don’t do that. Leave that alone. You’ve had enough. You’re doing it all wrong. It’s always a variation of the same thing: “No daughter of mine should do/say/wear/eat something like that.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“Love,” she says as she unbuckles her seat belt. “They say it’s the last and most serious disease of childhood.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“Good things get better, bad get worse.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“There’s no good way to die,” she says. “Fast, slow. It’s all heartbreaking.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“Maybe the most important thing I learned from you: people don’t always give you what you want. They give you what they have to give.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“If you lose something, put a glass upside down. Whatever you lost will soon turn up.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“God be with us this day…watch over us, insure us against danger; protect us from harm. Be ever at our side to light, to guard, to rule and guide us to safety to our journey’s end.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“people don’t always give you what you want. They give you what they have to give.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“Their Lonestar Calf Riding Boots.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“You’re practically seventy…and you still have a type?” “See how you feel when you’re seventy,” she says, laughing.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“Un de perdu, dix de retrouvés. One lost, ten found.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“Whatever love my father gave her was all the love she needed; whatever love she gave me was all she had to give.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“I’m reading, and lo and behold, there it is: my passport. Being used as a bookmark. “I found it!” I yell out. “See? I told you that glass trick would work.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“It’s a simple procedure called cardioversion. You’re asleep through it. You don’t even remember it when you’re up.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“Bønn for den reisende: Gud, vær med oss i dag—våk over oss, forsikre oss mot fare. Beskytt oss mot skade. Vær alltid ved vår side av lyset, for å vokte, å herske og veilede oss trygt til vår reise. Amen.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“always felt confident in water. It took me years (with the help of The Great Esther) to feel that way on land.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“See, that’s the thing about a good imagination. It can be your best friend. Or, in times like this, your worst enemy. As I take the elevator up, I keep going back and forth in my mind: Murderer? Seducer? Lover? Solicitor? Killer? All of the above? I hold my breath as I knock on his door.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“You never get used to death,” she says. “We are all here for such a brief time and then it’s over…but never for the ones left behind.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“He wasn’t like Dad.” “My dear, most men are not.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“Don’t you think you should consider getting rid of your bangs?” That’s the way it’s always been with my mother. She says one thing; I hear something else.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“YES, IT WAS A fabulous trip. How I wish it had actually happened that way. But you know the old saying: If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. Here’s what really happened after I was summoned to my mother’s hospital bedside in New Jersey:”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“He takes a sip of his martini. Then another sip. Then a deep breath. Whatever he is about to say…I know I don’t want to hear”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“There are a million things I want to ask her. But for now, she breaks off a hunk of the chocolate for both of us.
One broken heart. One chocolate bar. Works every time.”
― Susan Patterson and Susan DiLallo

“sleep mask.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“She goes into the bathroom and gets one of the clean glasses, rips off the sanitized paper top, and puts the glass upside down on the desk. “What’s that for?” I ask. “It’s an old Jewish superstition. If you lose something, put”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“Genius is of small use to a woman who does not know how to do her hair.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“he’s easily forty-five.”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother

“short of a picnic?”
― Susan Patterson, Things I Wish I Told My Mother