Ann Garvin > Quotes

“To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting. —e. e. cummings”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“Maybe it was part of that weird thing we humans do. We only want to be a member of the club that won’t have us. Maybe it was my almost-desperate need to be liked, and here this person was, wildly, aggressively not liking me. But when Holly was vulnerable and needed somebody, I just wanted to comfort her, and I wanted her friendship because despite everything, I still loved her.”
― Ann Garvin, I Thought You Said This Would Work

“Sidney: The woman took a seat to reorganize, and Lucy cataloged an almost perfectly symmetrical face with cheekbones that could part hair. The woman's pale face hid underneath the lip-gloss and mascara that ran interference, distracting onlookers from a sagging spirit. She was dressed in a baggie sweater and jeans that made her look like a casual starlet waiting for the paparazzi to snap her photo.”
― Ann Garvin

“Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s wrong. And then, Just because it’s easy doesn’t make it right.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“This was the comfort of love. It didn’t cure cancer or reduce the pain of childbirth, but it cloaked lovers, friends, and family in an embrace that stretched far and wide and was supremely difficult to break, despite our best idiotic efforts.”
― Ann Garvin, I Thought You Said This Would Work

“Years could pass, a thousand compliments delivered, but one offhand, unkind comment thoughtlessly served could gnaw away at a person’s confidence for the rest of their life.”
― Ann Garvin, Bummer Camp

“I gauged her to be somewhere between forty and sixty, that ubiquitous age for a woman that teens considered ancient and homogenous.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“The blame ball, in the game of life, rolled downhill and, as often as not, hit the victim.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“I did think it was time to identify the people in my life who liked me for me, not for what I did for them.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“It was easy to see why Robyn and her friends mindlessly scrolled through their phones during any less-than-optimal experiences in life—boredom, shyness, jaw-clenching agitation. It was a great way to check out in plain sight from a place you couldn’t leave—the confines of your thinking, history, or thoughts of the future.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“Alone Again (Naturally).” A terrible tune about a man who certainly had a depression diagnosis, and someone should have taken away his piano.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“The trick was to listen, support, and do no problem-solving until a solid problem was defined.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“There was so much to learn, and it occurred to me that the largest life lesson of all had to be answering the question of how much to give, how much to keep. How much do you matter versus how much do others count when trying to be a mother, friend, or good person?”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“You’ve got a lot going on. You’re keeping track of your best friend, your daughter, and healing from the past. Also, this man you are texting.”
― Ann Garvin, I Thought You Said This Would Work

“People who hadn’t grown up with chaos didn’t understand you couldn’t reject any possibilities to restore stability. Those people had spouses, parents, safety nets.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“How time, judgment, and criticism fell away in favor of inclusion, which was something theater kids and football teams had in common. The other thing they had in common was the way they shared the burden of anxiety, everyone united, everyone shouldering one another’s responsibilities.”
― Ann Garvin, Bummer Camp

“It hadn’t occurred to me that doing something you wanted for yourself would come with satisfaction and happiness. How had that not occurred to me?”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“thanks is one. Also try, We’re different; Good to know; Hmmmm, I’ll think about that; and if they say something offensive, just say, Go Badgers and don’t”
― Ann Garvin, I Thought You Said This Would Work

“Happiness is a place between too little and too much. —Finnish proverb”
― Ann Garvin, I Thought You Said This Would Work

“Rarely is there much ado about nothing. And when there is, they created a whole play about it. Only the somethings get the ado. That’s the way of the world.”
― Ann Garvin, Bummer Camp

“There was so much to learn, and it occurred to me that the largest life lesson of all had to be answering the question of how much to give, how much to keep. How much do you matter versus how much do others count when trying to be a mother, friend, or good person? My mother knew to take care of herself first, and I’d learned the opposite in reaction. I couldn’t fault her anymore. I didn’t agree with her, but I got it.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“I tried breathing like a yogi, but who was I kidding. I tried to examine my anxiety as if it were an item at the grocery cart. To read its label: a negative feeling that you don’t need. Put that package back on the shelf and breathe.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“I took the hit deep in my belly; embarrassment bloomed as I saw myself through the eyes of a stranger. I was either unseeable, pitiable, or dismissed as “just a mom,” the culture’s most misogynist label of a supremely capable individual.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“it felt like butter smoothing burned toast in the morning—if that was a feeling.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“Whatever I want,” I said. A statement, not a question. And with the perfect timing of a professional comic, his mustache tickled my temple, and I giggled.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“You know, if you stood up for yourself like you do for everyone else, maybe I could respect you. I did put others first. I’d long known that if you focus on other people, you don’t have to figure out what you want. If you never ask anything for yourself, you’ll never discover who cares or, for that matter, doesn’t care.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“depression”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“was older than Robyn, still wanting a mother even knowing she wouldn’t return. That all I had of her was the house. Robyn didn’t know what it felt like to lose the only place you remembered being held by your mother.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This

“Holly wasn’t the only one whose mind worked in a flash when properly stimulated. The difference between the two of us wasn’t that I didn’t know what to say. The critical distinction was that Holly let herself say whatever popped into her head while I clamped my mouth shut. I knew that made me more likable than Holly in general. But after years of this practice, I felt like there might be a reservoir of unspoken retorts somewhere in my body, ready to burst. Perhaps sometime in the far future I’d go in to have brain surgery. The doctor would be concentrating and cut into a blob in my frontal lobe and a loud stream of saucy comebacks would scream from within. I pictured the doctor’s hair blowing back, which was silly; they always wore a cap.”
― Ann Garvin, I Thought You Said This Would Work

“Most of my recent imbalances have to do with trusting the wrong person to do a job.”
― Ann Garvin, There's No Coming Back from This