Laurie Frankel > Quotes

“You can’t tell people what to be, I’m afraid,” said Rosie. “You can only love and support who they already are.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“This is how it always is. You have to make these huge decision on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands. Who trusts you to know what's good and right and then to be able to make that happen. You never have enough information. You don't get to see the future. And if you screw up - if with your incomplete contradictory information you make the wrong call - nothing less than your child's entire future and happiness is at stake. It's impossible. It's heartbreaking. It's maddening. But there's no alternative."

"Sure there is," she said.

"What?"

"Birth control.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Such a tough life. This is not the easy way."
"No," Penn agreed, "but I'm not sure easy is what I want for the kids anyway."
She looked up at him. "Why the hell not?"
"I mean, if we could have everything, sure. If we can have it all, yeah. I wish them easy, successful, fun-filled lives, crowned with good friends, attentive lovers, heaps of money, intellectual stimulation, and good views out the window. I wish them eternal beauty, international travel, and smart things to watch on tv. But if I can't have everything, if I only get a few, I'm not sure easy makes my wish list."
"Really?"
"Easy is nice. But its not as good as getting to be who you are or stand up for what you believe in," said Penn. "Easy is nice. But I wonder how often it leads to fulfilling work or partnership or being."
"Easy probably rules out having children," Rosie admitted.
"Having children, helping people, making art, inventing anything, leading the way, tackling the world's problems, overcoming your own. I don't know. Not much of what I value in our lives is easy. But there's not much of it I'd trade for easy either, I don't think.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“I wish for my child, for all our children, a world where they can be who they are and become their most loved, blessed, appreciated selves.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Just because it’s made up, doesn’t mean it isn’t real,” said Penn. “Made up is the most powerful real there is.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Wider ranges of normal make the world a better place for everyone.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“How did you teach your small human that it’s what’s inside that counts when the truth was everyone was pretty preoccupied with what you put on over the outside too?”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“For my child, for all our children, I want more options, more paths through the woods, wider ranges of normal, and unconditional love.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“parenting always involves this balance between what you know, what you guess, what you fear, and what you imagine.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Not ever. Not once. You never know. You only guess. This is how it always is. You have to make these huge decisions on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands, who trusts you to know what’s good and right and then to be able to make that happen. You never have enough information. You don’t get to see the future. And if you screw up, if with your incomplete, contradictory information you make the wrong call, well, nothing less than your child’s entire future and happiness is at stake. It’s impossible. It’s heartbreaking. It’s maddening. But there’s no alternative.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Rosie was also used to conflicting emotions, for she was a mother and knew every moment of every day that no one out in the world could ever love or value or nurture her children as well as she could and yet that it was necessary nonetheless to send them out into that world anyway.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“All life. You are never finish, never done. Never become, always becoming. You know? Life is change so is always okay you are not there yet. Is like this for you and Poppy and everyone. The people who do not understand are change. The people who afraid are change. There is no before and no after because change is what is life. You live in change, in in between.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“There are few children more treasured than ill-behaved ones who belong to someone else.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Who people think they are and what people think they want is not really who they are or what they want.”
― Laurie Frankel, Goodbye for Now

“Dispelling fear. Taming what was scary not by hiding it, not by blocking it or burying it, not by keeping it secret, but by reminding themselves, and everyone else, to choose love, choose openness, to think and be calm. That there were more ways than just two, wider possibilities than hidden or betrayed, stalled or brokenhearted, male or female, right or wrong. Middle ways. Ways beyond. They”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Dispelling fear. Taming what was scary not by hiding it, not by blocking it or burying it, not by keeping it secret, but by reminding themselves, and everyone else, to choose love, choose openness, to think and be calm. That there were more ways than just two, wider possibilities than hidden or betrayed, stalled or brokenhearted, male or female, right or wrong. Middle ways. Ways beyond.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“...ultimately, eventually, we let go. We do this not because we're ready. We do this not because we've mended. We do this not because we've mourned and come to terms and gotten over it and moved on. We never move on. We don't let go so much as lose our grip and fall because remembering is not enough..memory is imperfect. It is full of holes. It is more space than matter, like lace. It is at once sodden with sorrow and desiccated from lack of blood flow, the obvious result of a broken heart. It makes things up in hopeless attempts to comfort itself. It fills fissure with fantasy. It screws shut its eyes and balls up its fists and flings itself to the ground in a kicking, screaming, blind-rage temper tantrum against reality. But mostly,..memory keeps taking on more.”
― Laurie Frankel, Goodbye for Now

“That's what all stories want. They want to get out, get told, get heard.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Our first concern is his happiness of course; but not just today." Because it wasn't that simple, was it? Raising children was the longest of long games.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“If you give all your worry to one thing, soon you'll realize that's way too much and worry about it less and you'll feel more in control of it for keeping it at the front of your mind and that will help you worry less too.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Easy is nice, but it’s not as good as getting to be who you are or stand up for what you believe in,”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Not much of what I value in our lives is easy.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“These kids, her multitudes, they could grow up. They could move Away. They could—they would—become new, become changed, become actual adult people in progress, people she wouldn’t recognize, people she could not imagine. People remade. They would undergo miracles. They would transform. They would make magic. But they were her story, hers and Penn’s, so however wide they wandered, they would always be right here.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“You have to help him see that if he’s disappearing from the world, that’s too high a price to pay for fitting in. He has to see how ‘You shouldn’t push even though you want to’ isn’t the same as ‘You shouldn’t wear a dress even though you want to.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Sometimes when I remember we aren't the same person, it shocks me.”
― Laurie Frankel, Goodbye for Now

“If you don’t worry about something until it’s already a problem,’ said Rosie, ‘that’s not worry. That’s observation.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“They say it is what you never imagine can be lost that is hardest to live without.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“Leaving wasn’t weak, and it wasn’t giving up. It was brave and hard fought, a transition like any other, difficult and scary and probably necessary in the end. Fighting it only delayed the inevitable.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“All life. You are never finish, never done. Never become, always becoming.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is

“It’s not a book club if there isn’t wine.”
― Laurie Frankel, This Is How It Always Is