Patty Berman > Patty's Quotes

“When you come out of the grips of a depression there is an incredible relief, but not one you feel allowed to celebrate. Instead, the feeling of victory is replaced with anxiety that it will happen again, and with shame and vulnerability when you see how your illness affected your family, your work, everything left untouched while you struggled to survive. We come back to life thinner, paler, weaker … but as survivors. Survivors who don’t get pats on the back from coworkers who congratulate them on making it. Survivors who wake to more work than before because their friends and family are exhausted from helping them fight a battle they may not even understand. I hope to one day see a sea of people all wearing silver ribbons as a sign that they understand the secret battle, and as a celebration of the victories made each day as we individually pull ourselves up out of our foxholes to see our scars heal, and to remember what the sun looks like.”
― Jenny Lawson, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

“We each are artists of the self, creating a collage -- a new and original work of art -- out of scraps and fragments of identifications. The people with whom we identify are, positively or negatively, always important to us. Our feelings toward them are, in some way, always intense.”
― Judith Viorst, Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow

“Infantile love follows the principle ‘I love because I am loved.’ “Mature love follows the principle ‘I am loved because I love.’ “Immature love says ‘I love you because I need you.’ “Mature love says ‘I need you because I love you.”
― Judith Viorst, Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow

“I had it together on Sunday.
By Monday at noon it had cracked.
On Tuesday debris
Was descending on me.
And by Wednesday no part was intact.
On Thursday I picked up some pieces.
On Friday I picked up the rest.
By Saturday, late,
It was almost set straight.
And on Sunday the world was impressed
With how well I had got it together.”
― Judith Viorst, Suddenly Sixty: And Other Shocks of Later Life

“Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational, but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?”
― Judith Viorst

“Infatuation is when you think he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford - but you'll take him anyway.”
― Judith Viorst Redbook 1975

“...we should never grow so old, or change so much, that we cannot find room in our hearts for the wisdom of children's books.”
― Judith Viorst, What the Dormouse Said: Lessons for Grown-ups from Children's Books

“Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces, and then eat just one of the pieces.”
― Judith Viorst

“It is the image in the mind that binds us to our lost treasures, but it is the loss that shapes the image. —Colette”
― Judith Viorst, Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow

“You have survived everything you have been through, and you will survive this too. Stay for the person you will become. You are more than a bad day, or week, or month, or year, or even a decade. You are a future of multifarious possibility. You are another self at a point in future time looking back in gratitude that this lost and former you held on. Stay.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“Curiosity and passion are the enemies of anxiety. Even when I fell into anxiety, if I get curious enough about something outside of me it can help pull me out. Music, art, film, nature, conversation, words. Find passion as large as your fear. The way out of your mind is via the world.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“If we keep going in a straight line we'll get out of here. Walking one foot in front of the other, in the same direction, will always get you further than running around in circles. It's about the determination to keep walking forward.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“There will be other days. And other feelings.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“The sky isn’t more beautiful if you have perfect skin. Music doesn’t sound more interesting if you have a six-pack. Dogs aren’t better company if you’re famous. P izza tastes good regardless of your job title. The best of life exists beyond the things we are encouraged to crave.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“The present is known. The future is unknown. The present is solid. The future is abstract. Ruining the present by worrying about the future is like burning your most treasured possession simply because you might one day lose other possessions that you don't own yet.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“You don’t have to be positive. You don’t have to feel guilty about fear or sadness or anger. You don’t stop the rain by telling it to stop. Sometimes you just have to let it pour, let it soak you to your skin. It never rains forever. And know that, however wet you get, you are not the rain. You are not the bad feelings in your head. You are the person experiencing the storm.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“As the great writer Anne Lamott puts it: “Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“It is easier to learn to be soaked and happy than to learn how to stop the rain.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“Silence is pain. But it is a pain with an exit route. When we can’t speak, we can write. When we can’t write, we can read. When we can’t read, we can listen. Words are seeds. Language is a way back to life. And it is sometimes the most vital comfort we have.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“Forgiving other people is great practice for forgiving yourself when the time comes.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“When things go dark, we can't see what we have. That doesn't mean that we don't have those things. Those things remain, right in front of us. All we need is to light a candle, or ignite some hope, and we can see that what we thought was lost was merely hidden.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“When things are taken from us, the stuff that remains has more value.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“Just give yourself one simple reminder that the world is full of wonders. Even if we are at a point in life where we can’t appreciate things, it sometimes helps to remember there are things in this world to enjoy, when we are ready.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book

“The way out of your mind is via the world.”
― Matt Haig, The Comfort Book