Melissa Fay Greene > Quotes

“Who was going to raise 12 million children? That was what I suddenly wanted to know....Who was teaching 12 million children how to swim.....Who will tell 12 million bedtime stories....Who will wake in the night in response to 12 million nightmares....Well, as it turns out, no one. Or very few. There aren't enough adults to go around."

There is No Me Without You”
― Melissa Fay Greene

“So how does it happen that -- while most people instinctively try to save themselves and their families from a catastrophe -- a few slow down, look back, and suddenly reach out to strangers? Instead of fleeing in the opposite direction, a few wade into the rising waters to try to yank the drowning onto higher land. ... In the coming months and years, I would learn that -- just as there is no blood test to identify who will jump into the fray -- there is no simple biographical arc either. No resume can predict why this man or woman, at a safe remove from crisis, suddenly announces, "This is my fight.”
― Melissa Fay Greene, There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children

“America wrestles with its obesity crisis to such an extent that Americans forget there are worse weight problems on earth than obesity.”
― Melissa Fay Greene

“Their parents may fill the children’s hours with therapeutic equipment, tutors, drivers, therapists, psychiatrists, and special schools, while what a child wants and needs most desperately is a friend. Often a child longs for a friend despite rejecting everyone who reaches out. Such a child may be convinced to come out of hiding if the proffered playmate is a dog”
― Melissa Fay Greene, The Underdogs

“Adoption is the appropriate response to only one situation: the need of a child for a new family, combined with a family’s desire for a new child.”
― Melissa Fay Greene, No Biking in the House Without a Helmet: 9 Kids, 3 Continents, 2 Parents, 1 Family

“Then she thought: What if I start my own agency? I could train four or five dogs a year, as a small nonprofit, for people rejected by the big agencies.

It felt right and Karen didn’t generally engage in much second-guessing. The moment the idea struck her, she knew it was what she would do next, and that she would start immediately. She would invent a new kind of service dog academy. She would set a standard for compassion and generosity toward potential clients finer than anything she’d been shown when at her weakest. She would find and train service dogs for people in the depth of incapacity, sickness, and suicidal despair – her own state, before Ben had rescued her.

Because of course Ben saved Karen’s life.”
― Melissa Fay Greene, The Underdogs

“But I believe we don't know folks, we're acquainted with them. There's always something in an individual you ain't never going to know.”
― Melissa Fay Greene, Praying for Sheetrock

“... "In Grandfather's day," said Henry Curry, a gentle and elegant man in his nineties, the patriarch of the black community and a church deacon, "they didn't have the education, but here what 'tis: If you had any trouble your trouble is my trouble ...”
― Melissa Fay Greene, Praying for Sheetrock

“People like to say that what they love best about dogs is their loyalty, but the opposite is true. We love dogs’ self-centeredness, and their impression that our lives revolve around them. And it’s undeniable that, no matter what people struggle with day-to-day, there is great solace and pleasure in being able to arrange a dog’s life for maximum happiness.

A well-cared-for dog, a contented dog, convinced that he or she is the center of the universe, is a great sign that you’re doing something right.”
― Melissa Fay Greene, The Underdogs

“From the den, they heard… like the busy whistling of a bird on a branch in springtime… a high-pitched breathy monologue, a squeaky soliloquy… Connor was talking, Connor was babbling, to Casey! They sat side by side on the den sofa – Casey, resting her head on her front paws, gazed off into the middle distance, while Conner looked down upon her from above and held forth. The mumble of little whispery syllables included, frequently, “Ay-ee,” followed by a deep breath, and then another arpeggio of nasally notes. The mother and the speech therapist couldn’t make out the subject, but they perceived emotion, syntax, punctuation, narrative arc, rising tension, and perhaps even denouement. Since Casey’s arrival, Connor had worked hard to speak loudly and clearly enough for his commands to be understood; now he seemed to have grasped the essence of speech as a medium for relaying one’s innermost thoughts and feelings to one’s closest friend.”
― Melissa Fay Greene, The Underdogs

“A funeral was a thing they understood; dissent was something they did not.”
― Melissa Fay Greene, Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction

“In the Pirkei Avoth, the Jewish ethical compendium from the third century, it is written, "In a place with no people, try to be a person" (2:6).”
― Melissa Fay Greene, There is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children

“The primeval home of every shy and ticklish, tentacle-waving form of sea life and mud life, the coastal Georgia salt marsh is one of the Earth's rare and moist sunny places where life likes to experiment. Because it is flushed out twice daily by the systole of saltwater tide and diastole of alluvial tide, the marsh looks new, as if still wet from creation.”
― Melissa Fay Greene, Praying for Sheetrock: A work of Nonfiction