Sonja Yoerg > Quotes

“Hiking’s not for everyone. Notice the wilderness is mostly empty.”
― Sonja Yoerg, The Middle of Somewhere

“What is in your blood matters, but not as much as what is in your heart.”
― Sonja Yoerg, All the Best People

“[Her father] never minded when there was nothing to shoot, and she never minded when there was. The harsh crack of the rifle and the limp rabbits and doves were the practical cost of the joy of those mornings.”
― Sonja Yoerg, House Broken

“Maybe that's what marriage does, Helen thought. One day you're holding your breath lest a ghost fly up your nose and the next your coming home as married as your own mother.”
― Sonja Yoerg, House Broken

“The truest, best love had nothing to do with luck. Luck was faithless, and worth little. True love wasn’t fancy and it wasn’t magical, but simply true in every sense: honest, loyal and sure.”
― Sonja Yoerg, All the Best People

“The groan of the lake was the earth tuning for a song she was desperate to hear.”
― Sonja Yoerg, All the Best People

“WEED: A PLANT THAT GROWS WHERE IT ISN’T WANTED.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“Everyone was in a hurry, which didn’t make any sense, considering food was simple to get, no one had to make a fire to keep warm, and water flowed through the buildings, ready wherever you needed it.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“they always seemed to be halfway out the door, in their minds anyway. Iris hadn’t seen a single person completely absorbed in what they were doing.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“She had given herself away. If she wanted herself back, there had to be pieces of her, sacred and proprietary, that no one else could ever have.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“Everyone felt too much and not enough at the same time.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“The past wasn't a guest you could ask to leave when you tired of its company. No, the past put up its feet and meant to stay.”
― Sonja Yoerg, House Broken

“The careless arrows of misfortune were tangents glancing off the pure circle of her dreams.”
― Sonja Yoerg, All the Best People

“Sometimes it takes a stranger to show you what should be obvious, how far you’ve drifted from who you want to be, from what’s right for you, your true place.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“Summer was down to the last lick of ice cream before the cone collapsed.”
― Sonja Yoerg, All the Best People

“That was, in fact, what time was: a narrow container for a relentless succession of tasks. The container could not be expanded, but the tasks could multiply exponentially. In fact, tasks were guaranteed to multiply.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“What goodness she might hold in her heart had been overshadowed by her actions, again and again, She wasn’t a bad person, but she might was well be.”
― Sonja Yoerg, The Middle of Somewhere

“The past wasn’t a guest you could ask to leave when you tired of its company. No, the past put up its feet and meant to stay.”
― Sonja Yoerg

“That was, in fact, what time was: a narrow container for a relentless succession of tasks.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“If you fall in love with life itself, happiness is yours for as long as you live. The best thing about this trust? Hard as it may be to find, and to hold on to, anyone can have it.”
― Sonja Yoerg, Stories We Never Told

“Death was a cold and endless place. At least life served vodka.”
― Sonja Yoerg, House Broken

“In a corner of her heart she imagined her compassion as kindling that could ignite not only her tender and guarded feelings for her mother, but also jump across the void and ignite her mother’s feelings for her.”
― Sonja Yoerg, House Broken

“Suzanne understood there were three options for dealing with time pressure. Option One: Perform tasks more efficiently. Move faster, triple-task, cut corners. Buy cookies instead of making them from scratch, and ignore the raised eyebrows or direct complaints from better, more efficient mothers. Drive faster and risk a speeding ticket with scheduling repercussions rippling for days afterward. Text at stoplights but not in front of the kids. Sleep less.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“Remembering herself as a confident mother evoked a feeling akin to grasping at the vestiges of a wonderful dream. The futility of the attempt only served to emphasize the magnitude of the loss.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“What goodness she might hold in her heart had been overshadowed by her actions, again and again. She wasn’t a bad person, but she might was well be.”
― Sonja Yoerg, The Middle of Somewhere

“No one gives in without giving something up, and nothing is given up without cost.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“She had gills while other people were breathing with lungs. There was, however, no point in dwelling on it, as it was too later to grow up differently.”
― Sonja Yoerg, The Middle of Somewhere

“Iris came to the conclusion that keeping secrets and telling lies was the only way people could manage their complicated lives.”
― Sonja Yoerg, True Places

“Alison's words were falling stones. Carole reached to grab them, to hold them, to put them in order. It was so hard, the stones so heavy. The words kept coming. Her daughter's face was before her, her lovely, dear face, and she could no nothing to help her. Not now, not while the voices were drowning her out, burying sense and decency and love.”
― Sonja Yoerg, All the Best People

“How she envied Diesel. He could love someone without knowing them.”
― Sonja Yoerg, House Broken