Lisa Donovan > Quotes

“what generosity meant and that it had nothing to do with material gifts, that it was a kind of spiritual calling for some of us, that unrequited giving of self.”
― Lisa Donovan, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir

“And, anyway, I’ve learned from previous experiences that if someone values you only when you’re about to walk out the door, you should definitely keep walking.”
― Lisa Donovan, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir

“more alive. You cannot understand New Orleans, truly, until someone who was raised by her, someone who loves her and is loved by her in return, takes you there. You cannot imagine the truth she possesses, the sins she will accept within you, the forgiveness she has for us all, until you walk through her with a man who can only love you the way he does, full of truth and power, because he was given life by those streets, by the people, by the thick air that nearly chokes you until you learn how to breathe through your skin and through your bones and how to move your body in a sway instead of a strut because that is what she demands. The city sticks to you, gets in your hair, under your nails; you sweat a kind of funk that feels so real and so base that all you want is to find the man you love and devour him with your whole body and let his whole body completely devour you, let yourself get folded up inside him, make yourself so small in his arms, disappear into his belly, his legs wrapped around your whole self, his sweat and your sweat no longer different, while you’re surrounded by dull pink walls in a bright purple building.”
― Lisa Donovan, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir

“refused to let the world dictate to me that being a mother was somehow an obstruction to how good I was at my work or to my goals.”
― Lisa Donovan, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir

“looked at my daughter, an entire universe that had everything yet nothing to do with me, and I sat with the trick of that understanding, the trick of holding her up while also letting her loose, never making her responsible for my expectations but still giving her the power of the things I had learned and fought for. And then I kissed her and, before I fell asleep with her in my arms, whispered one last, real prayer into her ear. “Mija. Go wild.”
― Lisa Donovan, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir

“But mostly I settled on thinking about how tender we all are.”
― Lisa Donovan, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir

“slowly realizing that motherhood is all the painful tangled mess of the body and spirit, perpetually, and you can never again untie the knots. Instead, you feel it, all those feelings, all at once, at every moment, because that is the task at hand, that is the only way to get this right. To believe how everything, every moment leading up to this very second was important in getting you here.”
― Lisa Donovan, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir

“If someone values you only when you are about to walk out the door, you should definitely keep walking.”
― Lisa Donovan, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir

“Instead, you feel it, all those feelings, all at once, at every moment, because that is the task at hand, that is the only way to get this right. To believe how everything, every moment leading up to this very second was important in getting you here. It brought you him. So you do your best for him, girl, every single moment you have available for the rest of this life. You are his forever. You are his mother.”
― Lisa Donovan, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir

“My mother, her family, the spirit of them, I've kept it all at a very long arm's length—deflecting it with a type of manic industriousness, working hard so I could do that trite thing that every woman does: fighting with the ghosts of who our mothers were so we "don't become them.”
― Lisa Donovan, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir

“The money I made had to cover food, day care, clothing, a flip phone, dental visits, doctor visits, gas, and the paltry amount of enrichment we could afford for the kids.”
― Lisa Donovan, Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger: A Memoir