Ann Hood > Quotes

“Grief is not linear. People kept telling me that once this happened or that passed, everything would be better. Some people gave me one year to grieve. They saw grief as a straight line, with a beginning, middle, and end. But it is not linear. It is disjointed. One day you are acting almost like a normal person. You maybe even manage to take a shower. Your clothes match. You think the autumn leaves look pretty, or enjoy the sound of snow crunching under your feet. Then a song, a glimpse of something, or maybe even nothing sends you back into the hole of grief. It is not one step forward, two steps back. It is a jumble. It is hours that are all right, and weeks that aren't. Or it is good days and bad days. Or it is the weight of sadness making you look different to others and nothing helps.”
― Ann Hood, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief

“Even now, there are still days so beautiful, I almost believe in God.”
― Ann Hood, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief

“No mother should lose her child.”
― Ann Hood, The Knitting Circle

“She understood that grief is not neat and orderly; it does not follow any rules. Time does not heal it. Rather time insists on passing and as it does, grief changes but does not go away.”
― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer

“This was how to help a family who has just lost their child. Wash the clothes, make soup. Don't ask them what they need, bring them what they need. Keep them warm. Listen to them rant, and cry, and tell their story over and over.”
― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer

“Time passes and I am still not through it. Grief isn't something you get over. You live with it. You go on on with it lodged in you. Sometimes I feel like I have swallowed a pile of stones. Grief makes me heavy. It makes me slow. Even on days when I laugh a lot, or dance, or finish a project, or meet a deadline, or celebrate, or make love, it is there. Lodged deep inside of me.”
― Ann Hood, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief

“Follow love and it will flee;
Flee love and it will follow you.”
― Ann Hood

“Don't waste your one beautiful life.”
― Ann Hood

“The only language she could speak was grief. How could he not know that?
Instead, she said, "I love you." She did. She loved him. But even that didn't feel like anything anymore.”
― Ann Hood (The Knitting Circle), The Knitting Circle

“love is reliable. infatuation is temporary.”
― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer

“Don't waste your one beautiful life," Vivien said softly.”
― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer

“Could a writer understand how her book had saved someone long ago, when the world was a fragile, scary place and the people she loved weren't in it anymore? Could a writer understand that her book had mattered more than anything?”
― Ann Hood, The Book That Matters Most

“It mattered most to me then because of where I was in my life. So in a way, there isn't just one book that matters most, there might be several, or even a dozen.”
― Ann Hood, The Book That Matters Most

“On April 18, 1906, when that earthquake hit San Francisco and took David from her, Vivien began to speak the language of grief. She understood that grief is not neat and orderly; it does not follow any rules. Time does not heal it. Rather, time insists on passing, and as it does, grief changes but does not go away. Sometimes she could actually visualize her grief. It was a wave, a tsunami that came unexpectedly and swept her away. She could see it, a wall of pain that had grabbed hold of her and pulled her under. Some days, she could reach the air and breathe in huge comforting gulps. Some days she barely broke the surface, and still, after all this time, some days it consumed her and she wondered if there was any way free of it.”
― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer

“If you want to feel like ginger ale Claire, drink a ginger ale.”
― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer

“Grief made people guilty. Guilty for being five minutes late, for taking the wrong streetcar, for ignoring a couph or sleeping too soundly. Guilt and grief went hand in hand.”
― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer

“When you read a book, and who you are when you read it, makes it matter or not.”
― Ann Hood, The Book That Matters Most

“Time doesn't heal, I had learned, it just keeps moving. And it takes us with it.”
― Ann Hood, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief

“All that was missing... was everything else.”
― Ann Hood, The Knitting Circle

“all that was missing...was everything else?

Ann Hood, the Knitting Circle”
― Ann Hood

“There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book.”
― Ann Hood, The Book That Matters Most

“No one who reads can ever be bored.”
― Ann hood

“I believe that, magically, the book we are supposed to read somehow appears in our hands at just the right time.”
― Ann Hood, Morningstar: Growing Up with Books

“The idea of the book that matters most," Kiki said. "Because i think it's like impossible to pick such a book. When you read a book, and who you are when you read it, makes it matter or not. Like if you're unhappy and you read, I don't know, On the Road or The Three Musketeers, and that book changes how you fell or how you think, then it matters the most. At that time.”
― Ann Hood, The Book That Matters Most

“In the library I was handed a blueprint on how to live the mysterious, unnamable, big dream life I wanted. I was handed books. And through reading them, I grew up to find that very life.”
― Ann Hood, Morningstar: Growing Up with Books

“She understood that grief is not neat and orderly; it does not follow any rules. Time does not heal it. Rather, time insists on passing, and as it does, grief changes but does not go away. Sometimes she could actually visualize her grief. It was a wave, a tsunami that came unexpectedly and swept her away. She could see it, a wall of pain that had grabbed hold of her and pulled her under. Some days, she could reach the air and breathe in huge comforting gulps. Some days she barely broke the surface, and still, after all this time, some days it consumed her and she wondered if there was any way free of it.”
― Ann Hood, The Obituary Writer

“No one who reads can ever be bored,”
― Ann Hood, The Book That Matters Most

“She imagined books and this book group getting her through whatever was coming next.”
― Ann Hood, The Book That Matters Most

“Grief doesn't have a plot. It isn't smooth. There is no beginning and middle and end.”
― Ann Hood

“My first trip to New York City, when I was seven, was a whirlwind of Macy's, the Empire State building, and club sandwiches at a diner. On a whim, my parents took us there for the day, and my strongest memory is a revolving doors. It seemed to me than that to enter anywhere in Manhattan, you had to step into one and spin.”
― Ann Hood, Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York