Lisa Grunwald > Quotes

“The language of sex seemed to echo with Shop: as a Playboy, apparently, you got hammered or plastered, then you nailed or screwed or drilled a woman who was built, or had a rack.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Irresistible Henry House

“Clearly I have a talent now: I can trace every single thing back to a certain, scared place in the map of my heart.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Whatever Makes You Happy

“Infatuation was weather - love was climate.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Time After Time

“There is a strong connection between our ability to use our hands in useful work, and our ability to find happiness in daily life... daily repetitive tasks (are) the compulsive calmness that infuses our pedestrian chores with poetry. - Annie Modessitt”
― Lisa Grunwald, Whatever Makes You Happy

“RICHARD FEYNMAN LETTER TO ARLINE FEYNMAN, 1946 Richard Feynman (1918–1988) shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quantum electrodynamics. Unrivaled in his generation for his brilliance and innovation, he was also known for being witty, warm, and unconventional. Those last three qualities were particularly evident in this letter, which he wrote to his wife Arline nearly two years after her death from tuberculosis. Feynman and Arline had been high school sweethearts and married in their twenties. Feynman’s second marriage, in 1952, ended in divorce two years later. His third marriage, in 1960, lasted until his death. D’Arline, I adore you, sweetheart. I know how much you like to hear that—but I don’t only write it because you like it—I write it because it makes me warm all over inside to write it to you. It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you—almost two years but I know you’ll excuse me because you understand how I am, stubborn and realistic; & I thought there was no sense to writing. But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing, and that I have done so much in the past. I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you. I find it hard to understand in my mind what it means to love you after you are dead—but I still want to comfort and take care of you—and I want you to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you—I want to do little projects with you. I never thought until just now that we can do that together. What should we do. We started to learn to make clothes together—or learn Chinese—or getting a movie projector. Can’t I do something now. No. I am alone without you and you were the “idea-woman” and general instigator of all our wild adventures. When you were sick you worried because you could not give me something that you wanted to & thought I needed. You needn’t have worried. Just as I told you then there was no real need because I loved you in so many ways so much. And now it is clearly even more true—you can give me nothing now yet I love you so that you stand in my way of loving anyone else—but I want you to stand there. You, dead, are so much better than anyone else alive. I know you will assure me that I am foolish & that you want me to have full happiness & don’t want to be in my way. I’ll bet you are surprised that I don’t even have a girl friend (except you, sweetheart) after two years. But you can’t help it, darling, nor can I—I don’t understand it, for I have met many girls & very nice ones and I don’t want to remain alone—but in two or three meetings they all seem ashes. You only are left to me. You are real. My darling wife, I do adore you. I love my wife. My wife is dead. Rich. P.S. Please excuse my not mailing this—but I don’t know your new address.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Marriage Book: Centuries of Advice, Inspiration, and Cautionary Tales from Adam and Eve to Zoloft

“But 'contentment'. Is that happiness? Or is that only resignation wearing a funny hat?”
― Lisa Grunwald, Whatever Makes You Happy

“We have the purpose,” Darrow responded with equal passion, “of preventing bigots and ignoramuses from controlling the education of the United States, and you know it, and that is all.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“some people who were otherwise decent and faithful would lose their decency in order to protect their faith.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“Even in their brief time together, Nora had come to understand the difference between infatuation and love. Infatuation was weather. Love was climate.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Time After Time

“You're into happiness?" the technician says, her eyes never leaving the computer screen.
"I'm writing a book about it," I say.
"About happiness?" she says.
"Yes," I say.
" Didn't the Dali Lama already write that book?”
― Lisa Grunwald, Whatever Makes You Happy

“A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Time After Time

“I slide down between the sheets beside him, like a secret letter slipped into the safety of an envelope. And dream of ancient places, where everyone is young.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Whatever Makes You Happy

“Michael stands at the dresser, putting his comb into his back right pocket, his wallet into his back left pocket, his keys into his front right pocket. A place for everything , and everything in its proper place. Except, perhaps, his wife.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Whatever Makes You Happy

“I hope we're not intruding,' she croons, sweetly. "Well, I say, "I was trying to get a little work done." I give T.J. a fuck-you-I-don't-look-weird-get-the-hell-out-of-here-look, but apparently only I know what the look is meant to convey.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Whatever Makes You Happy

“But patience, real patience, meant more than simply waiting. Patience meant you had to honor the moments before things happened the same way you honored the moments when they did.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Time After Time

“People who say they know the Bible from cover to cover but don’t act on it are the ones who cause the trouble,” he said. “Better to concentrate on this world than spend too much time thinking about the next.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“Did it matter how long it had taken for a flower to become a flower? Did it matter if it was a day or a million years? Either way, life was improbable, miraculous.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“she’d been forbidden to play the national anthem again. It was clear to the stationmaster that Americans were unable to hear it without stopping traffic on the Main Concourse to sing along,”
― Lisa Grunwald, Time After Time

“Look," I say at last. 'You know me. You know my life. I always thought-or hoped-"
"You thought what?"
"I just want to be happy," I finally say.
She stares at me hard.
"You have been," she says.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Whatever Makes You Happy

“You want a story? Go buy yourself a magazine.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Time After Time

“And if you didn’t hold to the Bible on Creation, what else might you not believe? I had never thought to ask. There had been no need to. The sky was blue, the hills were purple, the summers were long, and the Bible was true.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“Bryan, almost meekly, suggested he would have to trust the press to report what he had planned to say. I was disappointed too. I think some part of me still hoped Bryan would find a way to come out on top. I had no wish to imagine a world—or a life—that had not been created by God, or a world in which no miracles had happened, or ever could. But Bryan’s viewpoint seemed to demand that we remain hamstrung—even spellbound—by mystery.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“is envy just the illusion that the problem of happiness can be solved?”
― Lisa Grunwald, Whatever Makes You Happy

“perhaps it is true that, as Bertrand Russell once suggested, “to be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Whatever Makes You Happy

“The large yellow rectangle shrinks until, like a tiny knot on a long thread, it is woven into the city’s fabric.”
― Lisa Grunwald, Whatever Makes You Happy

“Mr. Bryan, the Bible says only Adam and Eve and their two sons were on the earth. Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife?” “No, sir. I leave the agnostics to hunt for her,” Bryan replied, delighted—as the spectators were—with his answer.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“OLD JOKE Sadie and Moishe go to see a lawyer. “What can I do for you, folks?” Moishe: “We want a divorce.” “Well, this is very odd. I mean, um, how old are you folks?” “I’m ninety-three,” Moishe says. “Wife’s ninety-one. We’ve been married sixty-seven years.” “And you mean to tell me, after sixty-seven years of marriage, at your ages, you want a divorce?? Why now??” “We wanted to wait ’til the kids were dead.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Marriage Book: Centuries of Advice, Inspiration, and Cautionary Tales from Adam and Eve to Zoloft

“But the South I think of now was also a place where people strained for salvation, and lost things they loved, deplored Catholics and Jews, and got hanged for having dark skin. The South grew bullies who would use anything at hand—threats of damnation, mocking songs, blue blazes of brimstone—to build a wall against the future because of what it might destroy.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“I’m saying I know the Bible holds truth, but that doesn’t mean it necessarily holds facts.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig

“Maybe even the most devout among them yearned to consider other explanations of how the world worked than “God, in mysterious ways.”
― Lisa Grunwald, The Evolution of Annabel Craig