Meg Mitchell Moore > Quotes

“But really what it all came down to was that they wanted someone to listen. It was that simple; that was, at heart, what every single person walking across this green earth wanted.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Admissions

“We've all got our own brand of crazy.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore

“In the moment, you were often too tired to enjoy watching your children turn into people.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Arrivals

“...and she thought she understood, for the first time, the strange and terrible power a parent has over a child's happiness, and also how it worked in reverse.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Arrivals

“You’re grieving, but you’re living, and some days you’re doing more grieving than living and some days you’re doing more living than grieving. And you never know which kind of day it’s going to be until you open your eyes in the morning.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, Two Truths and a Lie

“Because they’re my life’s work.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Arrivals

“But do you ever worry? That you chose the wrong path?” “There is no path, honey.” “There isn’t? I thought there was a path. I was told there’s a path!” “Not really. There are just choices, and more choices, over and over again, all the way through to the end, like a big game of Choose Your Own Adventure.” “But what if you don’t choose? What if things just . . . happen?” “I suppose that even what looks like not choosing is a choice. Henry might wake up one day in ten years and wonder why he’s living with someone who color-codes the pantry and vacuums invisible crumbs off the garage floor.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, Summer Stage

“Was everything going to continue to come toward these kids earlier and earlier so that they emerged from the womb with their teeth wired, wearing glasses and helmets, scheduling math tutors?”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Admissions

“One day Cecily would grow up and fall in love and have her heart broken and do stupid things. She'd regret and wonderful things she'd remember for the rest of her life; there'd be a time when Nora might not know where Cecily was for days or even weeks at a time or what she was doing or with whom. She'd get a job (or not); she'd love it (or not); she might get married and have kids of her own or be a single mother or not be a mother at all. She might be a lesbian or an archaeologist (obviously Nora knew you could be both of those at once) and she might hurt people and ache with regret or be hurt herself and ache with sadness. She might not always be safe but for now she was, she was right here with Nora and she was sleeping and nothing could get to her at this moment." ♥️♥️”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Admissions

“They all think he doesn't understand; they think he doesn't know, and sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he's lost, swimming through the murky past. Can't tell the surface from the depths. But in moments like this, when the thoughts unsnarl and the memories slot themselves into the right places, he knows. Oh, for certain, he knows”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, Vacationland

“Purloined.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Admissions

“After what Sam told her, Amy wants to shake her fist at the world; she wants to scream with rage. She wants to track down Evil Alice and poke out her eyeballs, or at least give her a very stern talking-to, and maybe ask to speak with her mother.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, Summer Stage

“How did I forgive you? How did I stand you? It was my job to stand you. And I forgave you because that’s what parents do.” Joy was hovering somewhere between relief and despair. “What do I do, though, Mom? I feel like I have to be so careful, but I’m never sure what I’m being careful of.” “You wait her out,” said Joy’s mother. “You wait her out, and she’ll come back to you soon enough. You’ll see.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Islanders

“If you have a young child, then you are fulfilling the work of God in that way.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Arrivals

“Sometimes I feel like I'm hiding from the world, and I worry that when it's time to stop hiding, I won't know how to be a real person anymore”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Arrivals

“It was just so kind. It was so kind. Nobody had ever been kind to me in that way. Because, and I hope this doesn’t make me sound like an asshole, but when you have a lot of money, and you look a certain way, nobody thinks you need kindness too. But I did. I do. And this is going to sound crazy, but I said to myself right then, all those years ago, I’ve got to marry this man.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, Mansion Beach

“All I'm saying, Alexa, is that I don't want you to miss where you are on your way to getting to something else.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, Two Truths and a Lie

“This is what it meant to have children, this was coming for her one day, this was her future. You loved them and cared for them and they loved you back, conditionally, absolutely, so much love you thought you might drown in it, until the day they slammed the screen door and they got into someone else's truck and drove away”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Captain's Daughter

“The music starts again. Two bars, then four. The song is “I’ll Melt with You” by Modern English. Nicole and Louisa scream. They were both babies when this song came out, but that doesn’t matter: they recognize it for the happy high school dancing romantic anthem that it has been forever and ever. They take over the dance floor at the Myrtle Street Tavern on the last night in July, as summer turns the corner in Rockland, Maine, and they dance like two friends with everything ahead of them and nothing behind.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, Vacationland

“It suddenly hits Maggie that there's only a certain amount of happiness in the universe, and if you take what you think is your fair share, somebody else might have to give up theirs”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Islanders

“And yet what full lives had begun and ended there. in fact, the little house seemed to know that; it seemed in the pale light offered by the moon, to draw its very own rhythmic, settled breaths.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Captain's Daughter

“When you have control over your work life, control over your income, you have control over your whole life.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, Mansion Beach

“Gina reported it to a few of us via text, but not on the main text. A subtext, if you will.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, Two Truths and a Lie

“You never quite knew another’s story, did you, if you hadn’t walked by that person’s side their whole long lives.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Admissions

“What had Lu's mother ever done to Lu, except for at one time know her so intimately that Lu couldn't bear to expose her to all of the humiliations involved in her growing up?”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Islanders

“The second you let your kids loose in the world they immediately begin bumping up against other people, seeing things, saying things and having other things said to them, all of which contribute to the completeness of their human experience.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, Vacationland

“It all changed, once you became a mother. The lengths you went to. That became more important than everything else.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Arrivals

“She can easily be not free. She could have a business meeting, a plumber coming, an online therapy appointment. Any of these would do. Or none of them; she doesn’t need an excuse. How many times in the past ten years has she reminded herself that no is a complete fucking sentence?”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, Mansion Beach

“Look at your children. Of course you’re accomplishing something.”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Arrivals

“a crapshoot, who gets in and who doesn’t, I should have been more aware of that. I mean, I was aware of it, but all along I thought, well, who wouldn’t want you? Right?” SMILE ALL DAY LONG, said those little Post-its, back when Angela had so much love to give she didn’t know what to do with it all. Back when it”
― Meg Mitchell Moore, The Admissions