Frances Itani > Quotes

“Here we are, all these years later, standing back and watching our grown children have their lives - through ordinary times, through heartbreak and anguish. But even after horrible events, we are sometimes blessed with a moment of unexpected joy. We learn to grasp, to hold tightly to these moments for the short time they exist.”
― Frances Itani

“No matter what else we do with our lives, Maggie, music will soothe and calm us. Music will last, and outlast, and cast its spell and enter our souls and connect us across time and distance. We must believe this, both of us, all of us.”
― Frances Itani, Tell

“hands, returned a ‘G’ close to his own heart.”
― Frances Itani, Deafening

“I heard a noise outside the house, and sat up. There was nothing to see inside the room except the living-room furniture. The wind is coming up, I thought. It's begun to blow through the trees. What I heard next happened all at once, a loud but slightly muffled sound. Logic was not part of this sequence. What I heard was the sound of wings beating, many large wings marking time. I thought of the pair of doves that flew to the backyard feeder every day and I said to myself, But this is the sound of hundreds. How can there be so many? Why would wings be beating at night?”
― Frances Itani, Remembering the Bones

“I've tried not to be trapped in repetitive furrows of my own.”
― Frances Itani

“Some grief is so big, it has to be held in”
― Frances Itani, Deafening

“He brushed a fingertip over his lips and signalled across the room. "Now I’m going to take you home." But it meant something else, too. Grania’s cheeks reddened furiously when he made this public-private display, though no one else had noticed.”
― Frances Itani, Deafening

“Say your fears into the dark, my darling, and they will go away.”
― Frances Itani, Deafening