Delia Ephron > Quotes

“Wanting to be liked can get in the way of truth.”
― Delia Ephron, Sister Mother Husband Dog: Etc.

“Being in your twenties has changed a lot since I was in my twenties, but it is still a time everything awful that happens is awful in a romantic way, even if you don't admit it (and you can't admit it because then you would be less important in the tragedy you're starring in, your own life)...because in your twenties you know, even if you don't admit this either, even if this is buried deep in your subconscious, that you can waste an entire decade and still have a life.”
― Delia Ephron, Sister Mother Husband Dog: Etc.

“Maybe the truth can't be buried. Or maybe it can't stay buried. Maybe the very nature of truth is that it will ultimately reveal itself.”
― Delia Ephron, The Girl with the Mermaid Hair

“Again from a distance, Sukie was once again struck by her mother's chic and how different things can seem from far away, how there's more than one truth, the faraway truth and the truth close up.”
― Delia Ephron, The Girl with the Mermaid Hair

“Giving with no expectation of a return is the only way to give,” he said. That is, of course, the absolute truth, although I had not thought of it before.”
― Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life

“God, secrets could simply do you in.”
― Delia Ephron, The Girl with the Mermaid Hair

“I was always decoding. I was hyperalert.
Being hyperalert is a lasting thing. Being a watcher. Noticing emotional shirts, infinitesimally small tremors that flit over another person's face, the jab in a seemingly innocuous word, the quickening in a walk, an abrupt gesture - the way, say, a jacket is tossed over a chair.”
― Delia Ephron, Sister Mother Husband Dog: Etc.

“Am I being too critical? That’s what happens when you feel shitty about yourself. You turn into a bitch.”
― Delia Ephron, Siracusa

“Who cared that he couldn't spell? She was a good-enough speller for both of them. With luck, their children would take after her.”
― Delia Ephron, The Girl with the Mermaid Hair

“Do you think you can cause something to happen just from wanting it so much?' she asked. 'I don't get what you mean. Does this have to do with your dad?' asked Frannie. 'Not really. I'm talking about loneliness.' Frannie turned around and considered her answer. For awhile she seemed to be in a wilderness of her own. 'Do you mean that you imagined that Issy was your friend?' 'Yes, so completely that it was real.' 'Oh, that can happen. I believe that totally. Loneliness is powerful.”
― Delia Ephron, The Girl with the Mermaid Hair

“To the night version of her (mother) I owe free-floating anxiety. I am no longer a child in an unsafe home, but anxiety became habit. My brain is conditioned. I worry. I recheck everything obsessively. Is the seat belt fastened, are the reservations correct, is my passport in my purse? Have I done something wrong? Have I said something wrong? I'm sorry - whatever happened must be my fault. Is everyone all right, and if they aren't, how can I step in? That brilliant serenity prayer: God give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. To all the children of alcoholics I want to say, Good luck with that. If I don't do it myself, it won't get done (this belief is often rewarded in this increasingly incompetent world). Also, I panic easily. I am not the person you want sitting in the exit row of an airplane. And distrust. Just in general, distrust. Irony.
Irony, according to the dictionary, is the use of comedy to distance oneself from emotion. I developed it as a child lickety-split. Irony was armor, a way to stick it to Mom. You think you can get me? Come on, shoot me, aim that arrow straight at my heart. It can't make a dent because I'm wearing irony.”
― Delia Ephron, Sister Mother Husband Dog: Etc.

“Now he wasn’t going to be here to love me or to talk to me. To have conversations with me about everything. Stuff. What was on his mind.”
― Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life

“I love it that I'm standing alone, it doesn't bother me, actually I prefer it, actually I don't give a shit. I am a superior being in an alien world. No, in a world of red-faced aliens. That thought tickled her, but only for a minute. Mainly she longed to feel that she wasn't invisible.”
― Delia Ephron, The Girl with the Mermaid Hair

“She has bitten into a crisp juicy apple and wondered if the bite and the thought were connected-- one never knew what went together, and seemingly random acts could be cosmically related.”
― Delia Ephron, The Girl with the Mermaid Hair

“The silence in the apartment is loud.”
― Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life

“When parents die, the dream dies, too—the dream that they will see you for who you really are (and, I suppose, the dream that they will ever be the parents you wish for).”
― Delia Ephron, Sister Mother Husband Dog: Etc.

“In life one rarely knows which remarks of the hundreds uttered in the course of a day will turn out to be auspicious. In fiction, foreshadowing is planted and flagged in some (hopefully or desperately) subtle way, drama demands it.”
― Delia Ephron, Siracusa

“He was my true home. My first safe place.”
― Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life

“We don’t discuss death. Not that we avoid it. It’s just that here, we’re preoccupied with life.”
― Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life

“what we want to believe about life: that good comes of bad and all the absurdities play out in your favor.”
― Delia Ephron, Siracusa

“realize I hate the word widow. It’s sexless. I’m never using it again.)”
― Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life

“A man doesn’t recognize his own wife. Because she’s happy.”
― Delia Ephron, Siracusa

“I have to tell you something strange. My mirror cracked. I feel as if I caused it because it didn't just crack, it kind of cracked up. But that's impossible. I researched it. Telekinesis has no basis in science. That a person can cause an object to move or to change... that energy, grief, or I guess joy or anxiety or even fierce determination could cause something to happen... people claim to have done it, but there's no proof.' 'Just because you can't prove something scientifically,' said Frannie, 'doesn't mean it's not possible.”
― Delia Ephron, The Girl with the Mermaid Hair

“dogs dig deep into your heart. They’re in the room, on the floor, in your lap, on the bed, pestering you for treats, chewing your sock, burrowing under sheets, making you laugh, following you about, eating the cheese you left on the table, tearing in wild happy circles after baths. They trust. They are innocence. They are unjudgmental observers of your every unguarded moment.”
― Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life

“No one can truly know the answer to the question, What will you do when you lose the person you love?”
― Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life

“You are a long trail through the woods,” she said. “And in the woods people prefer a shortcut.” Our”
― Delia Ephron, Siracusa

“This is an example of why travel is important. It changes perspective. It alters your eyes and ears, puts unexpected notions into your head, provides aha moments.”
― Delia Ephron, Siracusa

“Our job as writers, as we begin that journey, is to figure out what we can do. Only do what you can do. It’s a rule I live by. Among other things, it means I can have novels heavier with dialogue than description. But more important, if you only do what you can do, you never have to worry that someone else is doing it. It keeps you from competing. It keeps you looking inside for what’s true rather than outside for what’s popular. Ideally. Your writing is your fingerprint.”
― Delia Ephron, Sister Mother Husband Dog: Etc.

“I’m Catholic. I might have already mentioned that ’cause if you’re Catholic, is it ever fucking not on your mind? I eat guilt for breakfast. I’ll take life with a side of guilt—that’s a joke we cracked like once a month. What’s on the menu? Life with a side of guilt?”
― Delia Ephron, Siracusa

“This visit is a bit of the same, and the same feels precious and fleeting.”
― Delia Ephron, Left on Tenth: A Second Chance at Life