Diane Chamberlain > Quotes

“Sometimes it was hard to express how much you loved someone. You said the words, but you could never quite capture the depth of it. You could never quite hold someone tightly enough.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Midwife's Confession

“She felt happy these days, yet there was always an undercurrent of sadness just below the surface”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Lost Daughter

“No matter how many people care about you, she thought, if you can't be open with them about who you truly are, you're still alone.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Silent Sister

“You got dealt some crappy cards. But you're the one who has to decide how to play them.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

“Every family has a story, and I love that those stories are etched in sand rather than granite. That way we can change them. We can bury the lies and embrace the truth. And we can move forward.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Lies We Told

“Sometimes coloring outside the lines can cost you. Only you can figure out if it’s worth it.”
― Diane Chamberlain, Necessary Lies

“Carry the confidence.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

“Conviction rates in the military are pathetic, with most offenders going free AND THERE IS NO RECOURSE FOR APPEAL! The military believes the Emperor has his clothes on, even when they are down around his ankles and he is coming in the woman's window with a knife! Military juries give low sentences or clear offender's altogether. Women can be heard to say “it's not just me” over and over. Men may get an Article 15, which is just a slap on the wrist, and doesn't even follow them in their career. This is hardly a deterrent. The perpetrator frequently stays in place to continue to intimidate their female victims, who are then treated like mental cases, who need to be discharged. Women find the tables turned, letters in their files, trumped up Women find the tables turned, letters in their files, trumped up charges; isolation and transfer are common, as are court ordered psychiatric referrals that label the women as lying or incompatible with military service because they are “Borderline Personality Disorders” or mentally unbalanced. I attended many of these women, after they were discharged, or were wives of abusers, from xxx Air Force Base, when I was a psychotherapist working in the private sector. That was always their diagnosis, yet retesting tended to show something different after stabilization, like PTSD.”
― Diane Chamberlain, Conduct Unbecoming: Rape, Torture, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Military Commanders

“What do I want now? I want to be treated with the respect I deserve in the current VA system and not be retraumatized. I want the men who did this to me to be punished and if that isn't possible, I want reassurance what happened to me will never ever happen to another woman in the Armed services. I want some restitution of the damage I have.”
― Diane Chamberlain, Conduct Unbecoming: Rape, Torture, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Military Commanders

“Just know, my darling girl, that if I could, I would call you every day of your life just to say "I love you" with nothing else attached to those words. No criticism. No advice. No requests. Just to say I love you.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

“It's just that I've learned that somebody's appearance doesn't always match what's going on inside him. You can't look at a guy's face and see his demons." - Travis from The Good Father”
― Diane Chamberlain

“My life sucked, and it would catch up to me, and I'd just crack.”
― Diane Chamberlain, Secrets She Left Behind

“Justice Denied

Thousands of women, probably more

I cannot reach them behind justice doors

Many stay silent, barred just like me.

Haunted by demons, faces unseen.

Still by the hundreds, they continue to serve

Duty and country, active and reserve.

Thankless, forgotten through America's wars

Scarred like their brethren, treated as foes.

Volunteered to go to the shores.

Died like the others, shamed to the core.

Where is the dignity, long since denied?

Lost in the White House of Justice Denied

Women in service since beginning of time

Often they're treated like victims in crime.

Where is their voice, silence throughout the years?

It's dead in the Senate and House, with their tears!”
― Diane Chamberlain, Conduct Unbecoming: Rape, Torture, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Military Commanders

“She felt happy these days, yet there was always an undercurrent of sadness just below the surface. Sometimes she would feel it there and not even know its source.”
― Diane Chamberlain

“Growing up in a household where something is terribly wrong, you feel the weight of that mysterious something even though it's unspoken. It eats at you. Confuses you. It leaves you wondering if your view of the world will ever make sense.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Silent Sister

“Incest, rape and abuse is rampant everywhere, even in our churches, but society is silent. It is a silent epidemic. One in three women will experience a sexual assault in her lifetime and one in six males, yet we don't speak of it, even in our churches!”
― Diane Chamberlain, Conduct Unbecoming: Rape, Torture, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Military Commanders

“You and me," I said,"we both got the same kind of hurt inside us."
She nodded, and suddenly, just like that, I knew I could trust her with my life.”
― Diane Chamberlain, Necessary Lies

“Maybe I had more wrinkles than I would if I hadn't spent so much of my life outdoors, but I didn't care. It was a privilege to grow old, and not everyone got to enjoy it. I was grateful for every minute I was given.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Bay At Midnight

“Suddenly I remembered something Daddy told me once when I was angry at my mother. “You know how Mom arranges orange slices on a plate for your soccer team and has activities planned for your birthday parties two months in advance?” he’d asked me. “That’s the way she shows her love, Gracie.” Why was I thinking about that now? I could hear his voice so clearly, like he was talking to me from the backseat of the car. That’s the way she shows her love, Gracie.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Midwife's Confession

“You have to make peace with the past or you can never move into the future,”
― Diane Chamberlain, Big Lies in a Small Town

“Feelings are never right or wrong,” she said after a moment. “They just are.”
― Diane Chamberlain, Necessary Lies

“All the love in the world doesn't put food on the table.”
― Diane Chamberlain, Necessary Lies

“It’s hard to move on if you don’t forgive,” he said. “It’s like trying to dance with a lead weight on your shoulders. The anger can weigh you down forever.”
― Diane Chamberlain, Pretending to Dance

“If you have a friend, a good friend, a woman you love, and you learn she’s done something abominable, do you stop loving her?”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Midwife's Confession

“There are too many silly rules in our lives,” she said, “and our lives are far too short to pay attention to them.”
― Diane Chamberlain, Necessary Lies

“There was something about the never-ending vastness of the sea and sky that usually gave me comfort, reminding me that in the enormity of the universe, my problems, no matter how painful, were very, very small.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Dream Daughter

“When you see a picture of the ocean, it's cut off at the edges. You know it goes on and on to the right and on and on to the left, but you never really know how it feels to see that until you actually do see it.”
― Diane Chamberlain, Necessary Lies

“I thought we’d known everything there was to know about each other but obviously that wasn’t the case.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Stolen Marriage

“The box was beginning to feel like another person in my house, a person with too much power for the space she took up.”
― Diane Chamberlain, The Midwife's Confession

“In 1996 Dorothy Mackey wrote an Op-ed piece, “Violence from comrades a fact of life for military women.” ABC News 20/ 20 did a segment on rape in the military. By November four women came forward at Aberdeen Proving Ground, in Maryland, about a pattern of rape by drill sergeants. In 1997 the military finds three black drill sergeants to scapegoat. They were sent to prison and this left the commanding generals and colonels untouched to retire quietly. The Army appointed a panel to investigate sexual harassment. One of the panelists was the sergeant Major of the Army, Eugene McKinney.
On hearing his nomination, former associates and one officer came forward with charges of sexual coercion and misconduct. In 1998 he was acquitted of all charges after women spoke (of how they were being stigmatized, their careers stopped, and their characters questioned. A Congressional panel studied military investigative practices. In 1998, the Court of Appeals ruled against Dorothy Mackay. She had been outspoken on media and highly visible. There is an old Arabic saying “When the hen crows cut off her head.”“This court finds that Col. Milam and Lt. Col. Elmore were acting in the scope of their duties” in 1991-1992 when Capt. Mackey alleged they harassed, intimidated and assaulted her. A legislative remedy was asked for and she appealed to the Supreme Court. Of course the Supreme Court refused to hear the case in 1999, as it always has under the feres doctrine. Her case was cited to block the suit of one of the Aberdeen survivors as well!”
― Diane Chamberlain, Conduct Unbecoming: Rape, Torture, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from Military Commanders