Maggie Smith > Quotes

“We say in the grand scheme of things as if there were one. We say that's not how the world works as if the world works.”
― Maggie Smith, Goldenrod: Poems

“I am offering the only thing I have. I am holding out my hand, feeding myself to the hungry future.”
― Maggie Smith, Goldenrod: Poems

“Was this my proudest moment? No. I was not my best self that night. I gave all the fucks, I thought. Why was I the one giving all the fucks? Where were his fucks?”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“The body remains a house unaware of its rooms.”
― Maggie Smith, Goldenrod: Poems

“You know what one of the saddest damn things is? One of the parts of all this that I’m grieving the most? When I lost my marriage, I lost all that shared history. I lost the person who knew me in a way no one else does, and when I lost him, I also lost being known like that.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“My handwriting is all over these woods.
No, my handwriting is these woods,
each tree a half-print, half-cursive scrawl,
each loop a limb. My house is somewhere
here, & I have scribbled myself inside it.

What is home but a book we write, then
read again & again, each time dog-earing
different pages...”
― Maggie Smith, Goldenrod: Poems

“It was completely illogical: as if part of me wanted him back, and part of me wanted him to disappear, and nothing in between would do. Or: I wanted my husband back, and I wanted the stranger he'd become to disappear.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“The thing about birds: If we knew nothing of jays or wrens or sparrows, we'd believe the trees were singing, as if each tree has its own song.
The thing about this life: If we knew nothing of what was missing, what has been removed, it would look full and beautiful.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“That bit of blue doesn't belong to them, and they don't belong to the sky, or to the earth, or to us. Isn't that what you've been taught — nothing is ours? Haven't you learned to keep the loosest possible hold?”
― Maggie Smith, Goldenrod: Poems

“Somewhere at the center is the tiniest doll. Love. The love that started everything. It's still there, but we'd have to open and open and open ourselves -- our together selves -- to find it.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“You are not betraying your grief by feeling joy. You are not being graded, and you do not receive extra credit for being miserable 100% of the time. Find pockets of relief, even happiness, when and where you can. KEEP MOVING.”
― Maggie Smith

“I didn't feel missed as a person, I felt missed as staff. My invisible labor was made painfully visible when I left the house. I was needed back in my post.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“My son's tooth was still in his mouth when his father picked him up. It wasn't ready to come out. It wanted to stay where it was.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“Art is a site of wonder and discovery—or rediscovery. Art is a place where we might learn what we think, not a place where we teach the reader what we've already processed.”
― Maggie Smith, Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life

“At our wedding, our college creative writing professor read a poem—John Ciardi’s “Most Like an Arch This Marriage.” It’s a poem about imperfection, about being more together than we can be on our own: “Most like an arch—two weaknesses that lean / into a strength. Two fallings become firm.” Being married isn’t being two columns, standing so straight and tall on their own, they never touch. Being married is leaning and being caught, and catching the one who leans toward you.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“If you feel that someone is being unkind or unfair to you, you don't want to be close to them. Then you aren't close to them, so you grow further apart. More unkindness, more distance. It's a vicious cycle, and breaking it requires deep work.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“Commit to doing at least one thing in service of your writing every day.”
― Maggie Smith, Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life

“Any piece of writing is a time capsule. It reflects the choices—and the abilities, and the limitations—of the writer we are at the time.”
― Maggie Smith, Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life

“What I didn't say is when I lost my family, I lost someone. The Person I'd called my person. In this way, my house is haunted.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“Marriages are nesting dolls too. We carry each iteration. The marriage we had before the children. The marriage of love letters and late nights at dive bars and train rides through France. The marriage we had after the children. The marriage of tenderness but transactional communication. Who’s doing what and when and how. And early mornings and stroller walks and crayon on the walls and sunscreen that always needs to be reapplied. The marriage we had towards the end, before we knew there was an end. The marriage of the silent treatment and couch sleeping and the occasional update email. Somewhere at the centre is the tiniest doll. Love. The love that started everything. It’s still there. But we’d have to open and open and open ourselves, our together selves, to find it. I can’t bear to think of it in there somewhere, the love. Like the perfect pit of some otherwise rotten fruit.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“What is home but a passage
I'm writing & underlining every time I read it”
― Maggie Smith

“Creativity isn't just about making art. Making your life is the ultimate creative act. I believe creativity is contagious, and when we put some of that into the world, it gets passed from person to person… I hope you're here because you know that embracing creativity will help you live a richer, more fulfilling, more connected life.”
― Maggie Smith, Dear Writer: Pep Talks and Practical Advice for the Creative Life

“We don’t speak vows to our children when they’re born. There’s no formal process by which we tether ourselves to them. The vows are unspoken but they hover in the air around us, moving around and in and through everything we say and do. I will always be here for you. I will protect you. I will make sacrifices for you. I am yours, always.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“What I want more than anything is to be free. To parent my children, do my work, and serenity prayer the rest.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“But health is health, and the end of my marriage had been bad for mine. I cried (and cried and cried and cried). I woke up in the middle of the night terrified, my heart racing. I whittled myself down, losing more than twenty pounds. I was thinner than I'd been in high school. I never harmed myself, never planned to, but the darkest moments made me want to disappear. To cut a hole in the air and climb inside. To play a magic trick on my suffering, a sleight of hand.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“If there is a God, is there such a thing as holy regret for what He's made?”
― Maggie Smith

“Stop watching and watching and watching the rearview mirror. Keep your eyes on the road. See the landscape scroll by like a filmstrip, and don't miss a frame of it. KEEP MOVING.”
― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: The Journal: Thrive Through Change and Create a Life You Love

“Lo que quiero que recuerden mis hijos es una alegría, una ternura y una unión desinteresadas. Quiero que recuerden que su madre era feliz, no que les ponía la cena en la mesa todos los días a las seis o que cuando daban las ocho llegaba la hora de acostarse. Quiero que recuerden todas las cosas que hicimos, no las que no pudimos hacer.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“Do not be still by anger or grief. Burn them both, and use that fuel to keep moving.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“At any given moment, I wonder: Is this the rising action? Has the climax already happened or are we not even there yet? When will the crisis end? How will it end? Where is the resolution?
I crave the answer to when will it end even more than the answer to how. We can endure anything if we know when it will end.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful