Susan Walter > Quotes

“I hate when people dismiss the loss of an object because “it’s just a thing.” Things are important. They give comfort, shelter, style, identity. The sum total of your things is a road map of your life. They show where you’ve been, what you accomplished, who you loved, who loved you back. They are an expression of who you are. You can learn a lot about a person by their things. Material things are not what’s most important in life, of course!”
― Susan Walter, Good as Dead

“No, a home is not where your heart is, it’s where your effort is. It’s where you cook and eat and sleep and take pains to decorate. It’s where your memories are made and kept. It’s the photos on the mantel, the artwork on the walls, the blankets that you snuggle under, the trees and flowers that you plant and care for.”
― Susan Walter, Good as Dead

“If you can’t share your true self with someone, he once told me, you’re wasting your time.”
― Susan Walter, Good as Dead

“I suddenly realized, money can’t buy happiness. But it sure as shit can take it away.”
― Susan Walter, Good as Dead

“Athletes are told, There’s no limit to how great you can be! Problem is, when the sky’s the limit, you never arrive.”
― Susan Walter, Running Cold

“All cruelty springs from weakness. —Lucius Annaeus Seneca”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“We often say that life imitates art, but sometimes, art also infiltrates life. People watch a movie about a dramatic comeback (Rocky)”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“Walking into one’s so-called “destiny” was the ability to see disruptions not as obstacles, but as road signs, then follow them where they led.”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“Nobody tells you when you graduate college that getting the gang back together is like extracting troops from a war zone”
― Susan Walter, Lie by the Pool

“I thought about what it meant to no longer have parents. There was no longer anyone who always knew my whereabouts. No one to tell when I was leaving town, no one to call when I got home. There was no one to ask for advice (Should I get the travel insurance/anesthesia with my root canal/cheese on my Whopper?). People who don’t have parents—even shitty ones—don’t have anyone to corroborate their earliest memories, call them on their bullshit, care, or even notice, if they are royally screwing up their lives. Before I had someone to blame for my missteps. Now the buck stopped with me.”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“Upheaval was a fact of life. You could either be defeated by it or take advantage. Walking into one’s so-called “destiny” was the ability to see disruptions not as obstacles, but as road signs, then follow them where they led.”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“I can’t stand people who jabber on their phones in supermarkets, blocking your access to the butter, then getting all self-important when you interrupt to ask them to move”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“Lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to the truth. —Fyodor”
― Susan Walter, Good as Dead

“Sadness is thick, like a heavy fog that clouds your vision so you can’t see any of the good things around you. But grief is something else. It’s not fog, it’s a storm. It rages inside you, tearing at your organs, pulling at your heart, lungs, skin, until they feel like they are going to rip wide open, exposing the most delicate parts of you, leaving them bloody and raw.”
― Susan Walter, Good as Dead

“Dogs are so easy to please—let them out when they’re in, and in when they’re out, and they’ll reward you with sloppy, wet kisses for days.”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“Unfortunately, even tiny, well-intentioned lies are dangerous. Because they force you to tell bigger lies to cover them up.”
― Susan Walter, Running Cold

“I do this silly thing when I have to make a tough decision. I flip a coin. Not to make the decision for me, but to see how I really feel. Heads,”
― Susan Walter, Good as Dead

“I read in some scientific journal that the brain doesn’t know the difference between a fantasy and a memory, that they both leave the same signature. I also read that a memory isn’t stored like data on a hard drive or a jar of olives in the pantry. Rather, it’s re-created from scratch every time you conjure it.”
― Susan Walter, Lie by the Pool

“I’d made sure of”
― Susan Walter, Good as Dead

“Not being financially strapped was empowering. It’s a lot easier to ask for something if you’re in a position to walk away if they say no.”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“It’s hard to leave a dream behind if you don’t have a new one to move toward.”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“We often say that life imitates art, but sometimes, art also infiltrates life.”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“But the problem with letting yourself be saved is that you forget how to save yourself.”
― Susan Walter, Lie by the Pool

“Movie people refer to that moment in the script when the main character hits rock bottom as the act two crisis. Romeo is dead. Jaws just ate the captain and first mate, and the killer shark is circling your sinking boat. In the last forty-eight hours, I’d lost a potential boyfriend, a dream casting, and the roommate who had supported me both emotionally and financially for the last seven years. If this wasn’t my personal act two crisis, I didn’t know what was. The only question was whether the hero in my narrative was going to rise up and kill that shark, or succumb to defeat like poor jilted Juliet.”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“I know it sounds like a contradiction, but she was both the most angelic and down-to-earth person I had ever met. She made me see things in new ways—a pool cabana was a playhouse, a song was a way for strangers to hold hands without touching, a traffic jam was a thousand souls trying to reconnect with their loved ones at once. Her imagination was as expansive as the California coastline. I”
― Susan Walter, Lie by the Pool

“He would have been the right man for the job at hand, even if he weren’t the only man for the job at hand.”
― Susan Walter, Running Cold

“If she was grade A prime, I was Hamburger Helper.”
― Susan Walter, Running Cold

“If not, there was always whiskey.”
― Susan Walter, Over Her Dead Body

“Acting is all about finding truth in made-up situations. I know that seems like a paradox, that’s why it’s hard. An actor’s job is to be completely honest while pretending to be someone else, in a place that’s dressed up to look like somewhere else, while telling a story that isn’t true.”
― Susan Walter, Good as Dead

“I’m sorry for your loss? Why do people say that? The loss is the least of your problems. It’s the pain that follows we should be sorry for. A loss is an event, a moment in time. But grief is relentless—a simmering flame that can be stoked by a whisper. It burrows down in the deep recesses of your heart, then surges up like bile, filling your lungs until it hurts to breathe.”
― Susan Walter, Good as Dead