Beatriz Williams > Quotes

“One can follow the sun, of course, but I have always thought that it is best to know some winter, too, so that the summer, when it arrives, is the more gratefully received.”
― Beatriz Williams, Along the Infinite Sea

“I don’t know how [books] accumulate like that. They’re part rabbit, I think.”
― Beatriz Williams, Overseas

“I thought, how magical, the first glimspe of snow. By March I would be sick of it, but here in this November instant those tiny flakes swirled with the unspeakable purity of a divine gift.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“There's something about the smells of your childhood, isn't there? ... You still remember those small sublime joys with an ache of longing because there's no getting it back, is there? You cannot return to a state of innocence.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Summer Wives

“Your father owns a history company?" I say teasingly.

Nick laughs. "No. Everyone on Wall Street has a history degree, though you'd never know it, the way they keep making the same mistakes, crash after crash.”
― Beatriz Williams, A Hundred Summers

“Life is complicated, without any sort of road map. We are bound to have disappointments and setbacks, and with each one we make the choice to reinvent ourselves as a stronger version of who we are.”
― Beatriz Williams, All the Ways We Said Goodbye

“you never do suspect what inconsequential event will change the course of your life.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Summer Wives

“How terrible a time is the beginning of March. In a month there will be daffodils and the sudden blossoming of orchards, but you wouldn't know it now. You have to take spring on blind faith.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Wicked City

“A clean break, like an amputation. Eventually, you realized you could survive without all your limbs, that you could function and even thrive, because human beings were designed to take a battering. And though you weren't whole, you at least had a son. And though it sometimes seemed as if your heart had stopped beating, you at least knew that somewhere in the world, another heart was beating for you.”
― Beatriz Williams, Along the Infinite Sea

“My mother once told me that a lifetime of good enough was a fair price to pay for a single moment of pure happiness. This is my moment. Don't take that away from me.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Forgotten Room

“Nobody ever says what they really mean. There is this vast fabric of tender little lies, and all the important things are unspoken. Boiling there underneath. We only bother telling the truth when it’s too small to count.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Summer Wives

“Here's the thing about New York, the thing I love most: there is no such substance as silence. If you ever stop talking, and he stops talking, the city takes over for you. A siren forms a distant parabola of sound. A door slams. The old couple in 4A argues over who will answer the telephone. The young lovers in 2C reach an animalistic climax. A million other lives play out on your doorstep, and not one of them gives a damn about your little problems. Life goes on and on and on.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Secret Life of Violet Grant

“They say human beings are creatures of habit, that we are wont to follow the scripts already written in our heads, the stories we have learned to believe, over and over again in the same implacable, brutal cycle, however much we long to write our own, original verses.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Summer Wives

“Because you learn things when you talk to people, especially people who aren't like you. You learn what a goddamned polyglot race we are, we marvelous human beings. Some people are friendly. Some people are gruff. Some want security. Others want independence. Some want the government to run things. Some want to run things on their own. Some people need a helping hand. Some people need a kick in the pants. Some want to live and to die in the same small town. Some want to ramble the wide world. Some are content with little. Some cannot stop striving. Some want to life beside a true love, to worship a single god. Some crave a universe of loves, a universe of gods. I could go on and on. The differences between them, between me and you, between you and the woman sitting next to you at the hairdresser, wearing that dress you'd never wear in a million years, reading that book you wouldn't touch. The genius of politics, of people like Frank, is to link them all, understand them all, to represent them all. Not just the ones you agree with, the ones that think and act like you do.”
― Beatriz Williams, Tiny Little Thing

“but I had long since given up trying to make sense of a world that refused to make itself logical.”
― Beatriz Williams, All the Ways We Said Goodbye

“How can we bear this? I asked. (He took the hat from my hands and placed it gently on my head.) Because we have to. Because you will know my heart is somewhere in the world, beating for you.”
― Beatriz Williams, Along the Infinite Sea

“Love. Really, it’s responsible for the most vulgar excesses.”
― Beatriz Williams, A Hundred Summers

“That’s just human illusion. We imagine there’s an order to things, because it’s too awful to consider the randomness of fate.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Golden Hour

“knew I was in love with him. Just imagine. As innocent, as uncomplicated as that. I still remember that moment, that sweet, shy revelation, remember it fondly, because it only comes once in your life, and then it’s gone. You can’t have it back. And it’s only a second! Isn’t that capricious? One measly instant of clarity, tucked inside the reach of your livelong days.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Summer Wives

“I knew exactly where he existed in my heart; I had no idea where he existed in the universe.”
― Beatriz Williams, Along the Infinite Sea

“...I knew I was in love with him. Just imagine. As innocent, as uncomplicated as that. I still remember that moment, that sweet, shy revelation, remember fondly, because it only comes once in your life, and then it's gone. You can't have it back. And it's only a second! Isn't that capricious? One measly instant of clarity, tucked inside the reach of your lifelong days. And then the boat touches the shore, and the moment flies, and your life--your real, murky, messy, incalculable life--your life resumes.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Summer Wives

“She wants to unburden herself, I can see that. Most people do. We all carry some burden or another, pressing into that tender spot between neck and shoulder, invisible to others, which we wouldn’t mind shucking off for a blessed moment. But we rarely do. To shuck off our burden is to show it to the world, and then what would the world say? The world would judge your burden, that’s what. The world would judge it, and how you’ve carried it all these years, and whether your burden is more or less than any other person’s, and what all this says about you. Sometimes you’re just better off carrying the damn thing into eternity.”
― Beatriz Williams, Her Last Flight

“Listen and love and support and whatever you can. But you can’t expect to save them. You can’t hold yourself responsible for their choices.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Glass Ocean

“You must find whatever ugliness there exists within him and have the courage to extract it, like a bad tooth, or if it cannot be extracted to actually journey inside him and gather the ugliness in your arms for metamorphosis, by the strength and the purity of your love to make him beautiful again.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Summer Wives

“Do you know what I love most about the ocean? The way the water’s all connected. The bits and pieces have different names, but really it’s all one vast body of salt water, all the way around the earth. It’s as if we’re touching Europe, or Africa, or the Antarctic. If you close your eyes, you can feel it, like it’s right there.” Pepper”
― Beatriz Williams, Along the Infinite Sea

“No.” “The golden hour.” Wilfred waves his hand at the sun, which now burns just above the jagged peaks that form their horizon. “He said that’s when everything looks the most beautiful, just before the sun sets. This luminous air turning everything to gold. He said it made him want to paint the whole world. And then it’s gone, just like that. The sun disappears. The night arrives.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Golden Hour

“I consider delivering some nonsense about how the cat’s had a pretty long run, wouldn’t you say, I mean I’ve never heard of a cat living nineteen years. But that’s the last thing you want to hear about something you love. It doesn’t matter if it’s had a long life or a happy life; there’s never enough life.”
― Beatriz Williams, Her Last Flight

“It's easy to love someone you can't have. There's no risk in it.”
― Beatriz Williams, The Glass Ocean

“I think every day about how we’re all here because of a series of little miracles we know nothing about. The miracles that brought me right here, sitting in this chair beside you. What they sacrificed so I could live.”
― Beatriz Williams, Husbands & Lovers

“There’s something about the smells of your childhood, isn’t there? Even when that childhood was short and flavored by bitterness”
― Beatriz Williams, The Summer Wives