Lisa Wingate > Quotes

“Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. Take time with them, teach them to have faith in God. Be a person in whom they can have faith. When you are old, nothing else you've done will have mattered as much.”
― Lisa Wingate

“The hardest thing about the road not taken is that you never know where it might have led.”
― Lisa Wingate, A Month of Summer

“But the love of sisters needs no words. It does not depend on memories, or mementos, or proof. It runs as deep as a heartbeat. It is as ever present as a pulse.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“A woman’s past need not predict her future. She can dance to new music if she chooses. Her own music. To hear the tune, she must only stop talking. To herself, I mean. We’re always trying to persuade ourselves of things.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“Life is not unlike cinema. Each scene has its own music, and the music is created for the scene, woven to it in ways we do not understand. No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn’t suit the moment.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“Sometimes we must try to view the actions of those around us with forgiveness. We must realize that they are going on the only road they can see. Sometimes we cannot raise our chins and see eye to eye, so we must bow our heads and have faith in one another.”
― Lisa Wingate

“Well, that’s one of the paradoxes of life. You can’t have it all. You can have some of this and some of that or all of this and none of that. We make the trade-offs we think are best at the time.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“People don’t come into our lives by accident.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“In my multifold years of life, I have learned that most people get along as best they can. They don’t intend to hurt anyone. It is merely a terrible by-product of surviving.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“We plan our days, but we don’t control them.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“A bad past is like gristle. You can chew on it forever and starve yourself to death, or you can spit it out and see what else is on the table.”
― Lisa Wingate

“One of the best things a father can do for his daughter is let her know that she has met his expectations. My father did that for me, and no amount of effort on my part can fully repay the debt.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“We die once when the last breath leaves our bodies. We die a second time when the last person speaks our name.’ The first death is beyond our control, but the second one we can strive to prevent.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Book of Lost Friends

“I want a pain that has a beginning and an end, not one that goes on forever and cuts all the way to the bone.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“Fear builds walls instead of bridges. I want a life of bridges, not walls.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Prayer Box

“I shush my mind, because your mind can ruin you if you let it.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“A woman’s past need not predict her future. She can dance to new music if she chooses.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“What the mind don’t ’member, the heart still know. Love, the strongest thang of all. Stronger than all the rest.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“The secret to a happy life is not in getting what you want. It is in learning to want what you get.”
― Lisa Wingate, Tending Roses

“No matter how much we may love the melody of a bygone day or imagine the song of a future one, we must dance within the music of today, or we will always be out of step, stumbling around in something that doesn’t suit the moment.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“No two readers read the same book, because we all see the words through different eyes, filter the story through different life experiences.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Book of Lost Friends

“I learned that you need not be born into a family to be loved by one.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“The trouble with drowning in the mess of your own life is that you're not in any shape to save anyone else. You can't be a lighthouse when you're underwater yourself.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Prayer Box

“It’s history,” I pointed out. “I’m trying to impress upon my students that everyone has history. Just because we’re not always happy with what’s true doesn’t mean we shouldn’t know it. It’s how we learn. It’s how we do better in the future. Hopefully, anyway.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Book of Lost Friends

“Dear Deborah,

Words do not come easily for so many men. We are taught to be strong, to provide, to put away our emotions. A father can work his way through his days and never see that his years are going by. If I could go back in time, I would say some things to that young father as he holds, somewhat uncertainly, his daughter for the very first time. These are the things I would say:

When you hear the first whimper in the night, go to the nursery leaving your wife sleeping. Rock in a chair, walk the floor, sing a lullaby so that she will know a man can be gentle.

When Mother is away for the evening, come home from work, do the babysitting. Learn to cook a hotdog or a pot of spaghetti, so that your daughter will know a man can serve another's needs.

When she performs in school plays or dances in recitals, arrive early, sit in the front seat, devote your full attention. Clap the loudest, so that she will know a man can have eyes only for her.

When she asks for a tree house, don't just build it, but build it with her. Sit high among the branches and talk about clouds, and caterpillars, and leaves. Ask her about her dreams and wait for her answers, so that she will know a man can listen.

When you pass by her door as she dresses for a date, tell her she is beautiful. Take her on a date yourself. Open doors, buy flowers, look her in the eye, so that she will know a man can respect her.

When she moves away from home, send a card, write a note, call on the phone. If something reminds you of her, take a minute to tell her, so that she will know a man can think of her even when she is away.

Tell her you love her, so that she will know a man can say the words.

If you hurt her, apologize, so that she will know a man can admit that he's wrong.

These seem like such small things, such a fraction of time in the course of two lives. But a thread does not require much space. It can be too fine for the eye to see, yet, it is the very thing that binds, that takes pieces and laces them into a whole.

Without it, there are tatters.

It is never too late for a man to learn to stitch, to begin mending.

These are the things I would tell that young father, if I could.

A daughter grown up quickly. There isn't time to waste.

I love you,
Dad”
― Lisa Wingate, Dandelion Summer

“Sometimes life goes by in a trickle and sometimes life goes by in a flood. It's in those rainy seasons you find out how well you can swim.”
― Lisa Wingate

“The good life demands a lot of maintenance”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“Books made me believe that smart girls who didn’t necessarily fit in with the popular crowd could be the ones to solve mysteries, rescue people in distress, ferret out international criminals, fly spaceships to distant planets, take up arms and fight battles. Books showed me that not all fathers understand their daughters or even seek to, but that people can turn out okay despite that. Books made me feel beautiful when I wasn’t. Capable when I couldn’t be.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Book of Lost Friends

“I understood now that all of us have that place inside that wants to be part of something, that needs the comfort and companionship of loved ones. Within each of us, there is an empty room, and when we open the door, light flows in. The wider we open it, and the longer we leave it open, the brighter our souls become.”
― Lisa Wingate, Tending Roses

“Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. When you are old, nothing else you’ve done will have mattered…”
― Lisa Wingate, Tending Roses