Amanda Peters > Quotes

“I've found that money rarely helps with the things that are most important.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“You never know what your last words to someone are going to be, and it's hard to reconcile it when the deed is done and the person is gone. For years I tried to think of something else I might have said to Charlie, something that would've let him know how much I looked up to him, how much I loved him. Words I don't think he ever heard from me. But I've lived so many years with the memory that the last words my brother heard were not words of love or encouragement, but words of anger, stained by my own embarrassment. The last thing I said to Ruthie didn't even have the dignity of being a word. A finger pushing into my lips, a shush to keep my secret. Words are powerful and funny things, said or unsaid.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“That’s why I found it strange that no word exists for a parent who loses a child. If children lose their parents, they are orphans. If a husband loses his wife, he is a widower. But there is no word for a parent who loses a child. I’ve come to believe that the event is just too big, too monstrous, too overwhelming for words. No word could ever describe the feeling, so we leave it unsaid.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Some people, I learned, are meant to read great works and others are meant to write them. Often, these are not the same people. When I was young, I decided that I could be the next great American writer. But over the years, no matter how hard I tried, I was denied access to that mythical space where stories dwell, waiting for the right person to find them and give them form. Somewhere between thought and ink, the stories held in my imagination dissolved into the ether.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Their memory haunted my mother, and she carried them around with her, constantly tripping over their absence and blaming me for the fall.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“In the summer, if I was up early, I liked to walk into the lake naked and lie on top of the water. I liked to watch the mist evaporate above me, my ears immersed so I could listen to the quiet hum of nature under water.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Fate is a trickster. He likes to set up all the clues just to see if you can put them together and make sense of the things you never thought to make sense of in the first place.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Dying is something I have to do alone.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“I dated but never found affection enough for a relationship. As much as other people couldn't understand, I was content. Did I get lonely? Of course, but those bouts of loneliness passed quickly, and I could always find comfort in my own company. Alice told me this is a strength that many people don't have. The need for conformity and for the attention of others can lead to a life of misery. I knew that half the people I taught were simply going through the motions instead of actually living. So, I allowed them to judge me, and I judged them in return.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“It was good to witness nature doing what it does best, letting go, moving on.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“THE LAST OF my peppermint tea has gone cold and the autumn chill has settled over me, but I don’t want to go in. I want to sit and look at the stars. I want to watch them move across the sky and disappear behind the trees. My head is resting on the back of the lawn chair, my eyes pointing toward the sky”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“I looked over to see my mother, her eyes wet, full of hope, staring at her oldest child, praying for her youngest.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Grief can be wide and feel bottomless sometimes, but eventually, it begins to subside, to grow into something useful.”
― Amanda Peters

“Windows are expensive; that's how people show you that they are rich.”
― Amanda Peters

“Wine isn't going to make this any better," she said as she went to the picnic table to open another bottle, She handed me a coffee mug half-full and leaned over to embrace me in a half-hug.
"Things always seem the worst just after they happen. Time will take care of this as time always does.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Somewhere in the echo of time, the universe had decided that happiness of a certain kind was not to be mine. I would have to find joy elsewhere.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“I think that we all do bad things, but that don't make us bad people... Maybe you have bad luck, but there's nothing sour in us. We've been through shit, remember? Every one of us alive today comes from something bad done to the family that came before us. You being alive is a goddamn miracle, so no more talk about sour blood. Own your mistakes. Make amends and move on. We owe that to those who didn't make it.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“I remember your birth, you know. All these years later, I remember it like it was yesterday.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“I dated but never found affection enough for a relationship. As much as other people couldn’t understand it, I was content. Did I get lonely? Of course, but those bouts of loneliness passed quickly, and I could always find comfort in my own company. Alice told me this is a strength that many people don’t have. The need for conformity and for the attention of others can lead to a life of misery. I knew that half the people I taught with were simply going through the motions instead of actually living. So, I allowed them to judge me, and I judged them in return.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Every one of us alive today comes from something bad done to the family that came before us. You being alive is a goddamn miracle, so no more talk about sour blood. Own your mistakes, make amends and move on. We owe that to those who didn't make it.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“I could always find comfort in my own company. Alice told me this is a strength many people don't have. The need for conformity and for the attention of others can lead to a life of misery. I knew that half the people I taught with were simply going through the motions instead of actually living. So, I allowed them to judge me, and I judged them in return.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“That rage that I had run from, that emotion I thought I had tamed, reared its head one last time. I felt my mouth go dry and my palms go damp. I felt a heat so intense I was afraid I would catch fire and burn us all down.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“There's something about someone knowing where you're from, I guess. Someone who knows what you mean when you say "the Valley," pronounces Bay of Fundy correctly and knows that Musquodoboit is a place and not just a bunch of letters thrown together haphazard-like.”
― Amanda Peters

“I lived my entire childhood in the shadow of infant ghosts.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“I didn’t know if I belonged here, in this house, with these people. But then again, I didn’t know if I’d belonged in the house I was raised in. There was, of course, no way to know, and it was a waste of time thinking about it. But I didn’t think about it anyway.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“People will be someone other than themselves if they have people who rely on them.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“You are a strong seed, you are. I will remind you all the time so that you never forget it," my mother told her, ribbon and hair snaking their way through her fingers. "Seeds are planted, and with love and with just the right amount of attention, they grow and become strong. A seed once established will spread its roots to hold them steady. We are your roots, don't forget that. When you feel sad or alone or frightened, remember you are as strong as your roots, and we are the strongest. We still roam these lands and dance these dances and speak our own words. Those, my girl, are strong roots that will make a strong seed that will, in time, sprout a beautiful woman. You are a strong seed, you are.”
― Amanda Peters

“Time quickens the older you get, as if the universe is trying to push you toward the finish line, to make room for the younger, the stronger, to mark your brief place in history and move on.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“It seems silly to break a bottle that you can use, just to make broken glass." I opened my clenched hand, the bear still there, still blue.

"There can be beauty in destruction. Something formed one way, made new again. There needs to be more of that in the world.”
― Amanda Peters

“In the middle of the field, in the place where I was from, with these people people I’d somehow always loved but never knew, we lay on a blanket and watched the stars crawl across the sky.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers