Lisa Graff > Quotes

“Everyone deserves a sad day once in a while,” Calista told me. “Sometimes things are too big for cheering up. Sometimes the best way to make things better is just to let yourself be sad for a little bit.”
― Lisa Graff, Absolutely Almost

“You can’t get where you’re going without being where you’ve been.”
― Lisa Graff, Absolutely Almost

“It's the way we deal with what Fate hands us that defines who we are.”
― Lisa Graff, A Tangle of Knots

“When you do choose to speak, she told me, speak truths.”
― Lisa Graff, Lost in the Sun

“Life is the grandest adventure one can go on, isn't it?' said the giant kindly (he seemed to be a very friendly giant). 'What else could a person ask for than just to be alive?'

Will knew exactly what else a person could ask for. 'Monsters,' he said. 'And cake.”
― Lisa Graff, A Tangle of Knots

“You should do something because you love it, not just because you’re good at it.”
― Lisa Graff, Absolutely Almost

“Her favorite animal was sea lions. Mine was giraffes. Her favorite movie was Casablanca, which she said was old and black-and-white and very romantic. She tried to tell me what it was about, but it all sounded about as much fun as eating burned bread crusts.”
― Lisa Graff, Umbrella Summer: A Heartwarming Novel About Grief, Healing, and Hope for Kids

“Some people aren't good at anything. Some people just really like donuts.”
― Lisa Graff, Absolutely Almost

“And you couldn’t be anywhere at all without having been almost there for a while.”
― Lisa Graff, Absolutely Almost

“Find something you’d want to keep doing forever,” she said, “even if you stink at it. And then if you’re lucky, with lots of practice, then one day you won’t stink so much.”
― Lisa Graff, Absolutely Almost

“And when thoughts wiggle their way in, sometimes it can be very difficult for them to wiggle out again.”
― Lisa Graff, A Clatter of Jars

“She stuck her tongue in her cheek, thinking.”
― Lisa Graff, Lost in the Sun

“brother died.”
― Lisa Graff, Umbrella Summer: A Heartwarming Novel About Grief, Healing, and Hope for Kids

“Sometimes memories hit like a wallop, all of a sudden, and hard. Other times, for no reason that anyone can explain, memories take much longer to sink in. They seem to meander a bit before choosing which mind to settle into.”
― Lisa Graff, A Clatter of Jars

“Memory is a curious thing. Some details stick in our minds like peanut butter on crackers, and refuse to budge, as much as we might wish they would. Other memories - heavy ones sometimes, ones that seem unbudgeable - can be plucked right out when we least expect it. Lost memories leave remnants, of course, flavors that linger in the mind, but it's difficult to taste things when you don't know they're there”
― Lisa Graff, A Clatter of Jars

“There's no controlling what Fate hands you...and in my experience, it rarely seem to give you exactly what you need at the exact moment you need it. ...Just remember this, it's the way we deal with what Fate hands us that defines who we are”
― Lisa Graff, A Tangle of Knots

“When you do choose to speak," she told me, "speak truths.”
― Lisa Graff

“I don't think you can ever really know if what you're doing is the right thing or not. I mean, that's true for everyone…so what you gotta do now is ask yourself if you're more afraid of doing something wrong or of not doing something right?”
― Lisa Graff, Rewind

“He nodded, like that made sense. Then he said, "So why does it bother you when someone calls you a dummy?"...."I'm not going to say that other kids can't be mean sometimes. Sometimes people say things that are just awful." I looked down into my Kleenex. "But you know what to are, Albie. You know what you're worth. At least I hope you do." I folded the tissue over on itself once, then twice, then three times. "And you get to decide what words are hurtful to you. If you ask me, 'dummy' shouldn't hurt you one bit.”
― Lisa Graff

“There was a hint of something lingering in her mind. A memory, perhaps, although Jo could only catch the flavor of a few remaining tendrils.”
― Lisa Graff, A Clatter of Jars

“When it's raining, you put up an umbrella, right? So you won't get wet?"........"But say you're out walking for a long time, holding your umbrella high up in the air to protect you against the rain. If you're too busy worrying about not getting wet, or just thinking about something else entirely, you may not even notice that it's stopped raining. So there you are, with your umbrella still open above you, and there's no more rain at all. You may not be getting wet, but you're missing the sunshine."........"I think all your worries are like an umbrella for you.”
― Lisa Graff, Umbrella Summer

“I wished there was a way to keep that in a bottle, that one moment of wonderful perfect, so I could open it up whenever I needed to get a good whiff.”
― Lisa Graff, Umbrella Summer: A Heartwarming Novel About Grief, Healing, and Hope for Kids

“It's the way we deal with what fate hands us that defines who we are.”
― Lisa Graff

“I don't know why I'm always screwing up at everything, even when I try so hard, all the time, not to. I'd do better if I could, I really would. But I don't know how.
There are a lot of things I don't know.”
― Lisa Graff, Absolutely Almost

“the”
― Lisa Graff, Absolutely Almost

“And every one of these days, from dawn to dusk, has been more or less the same. Far from grand but not too horrible, either, like a pebble underneath your sock that’s not quite large enough to bother removing.”
― Lisa Graff, A Tangle of Knots

“Just remember this. It’s the way we deal with what Fate hands us that defines who we are.”
― Lisa Graff, A Tangle of Knots

“Well, that’s the thing about knots, isn’t it? If you don’t know the trick, it’s a muddled predicament. But in fact each loop of every knot is carefully placed, one end twisting into the other in a way you might not have expected. I find them rather beautiful, really.”
― Lisa Graff

“Trying hard and being a good person didn't always mean good things would happen to you. But it did mean that others might try on your behalf.”
― Lisa Graff, A Tangle of Knots

“I wondered what getting an A would feel like. The best feeling in the world, probably. Like going to a Yankees game with your dad and eating three hot dogs with extra everything.”
― Lisa Graff, Absolutely Almost