Pat Nixon > Pat's Quotes

“Honey, Maggie Jones said. Victoria. Listen to me. You're here now. This is where you are.”
― Kent Haruf, Plainsong

“In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.”
― John Williams, Stoner

“There is no such thing as escape after all, only an exchange of one set of difficulties for another. It wasn't Mark or the farm or marriage I was trying to shake loose from but my own imperfect self, and even if I kept moving, she would dog me all the way around the world, forever.”
― Kristin Kimball, The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love

“When he began to see the way the world is, not the way the corporate media presented it, not the way his teacher and parents told it, not the way he wished it was, so he wouldn't have to feel guilt. Once he saw the way the world is, in it's most gritty, tactile, overwhelming sadness and injustice, well he could never unsee it.”
― Stephen Markley, Ohio

“To get lost in a story, or even a study, is inherently to acknowledge the voice of another, to broaden one’s perspective beyond the confines of one’s own understanding. A good book is the opposite of a selfie; the right book at the right time can expand our lives in the way love does, making us more thoughtful, more generous, more brave, more alert to the world’s wonders and more pained by its inequities, more wise, more kind.”
― James Mustich, 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die: A Life-Changing List

“Don't you understand? My sister was an innocent, blameless in her horrific fate. And it was all her fault.”
― Alexis Schaitkin, Saint X

“The thing about old girlfriends, Micah reflected, is that each one subtracts something from you. You say goodbye to your first great romance and move on to the next, but you find you have less to give to the next. A little chip of you has gone missing; you’re not quite so wholly there in the new relationship.”
― Anne Tyler, Redhead by the Side of the Road

“What’s the point of living if you don’t try to do things better?”
― Anne Tyler, Redhead by the Side of the Road

“It appears that he was accidentally dreaming somebody else’s dream.”
― Anne Tyler, Redhead by the Side of the Road

“Because even if I sometimes use the word abuse to describe certain things that were done to me, in someone else’s mouth the word turns ugly and absolute. It swallows up everything that happened.”
― Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa

“She hadn't realized how long it takes to become somebody else, or how lonely it can be living in a world not meant for you.”
― Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half

“It's one thing to remember your roots, Sam. Helps us keep our balance. But don’t let your roots become your excuse to be stuck.”
― Connie Schultz, The Daughters of Erietown

“The average man is proof the average woman can take a joke,” he said.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman

“Don’t you want to be a U.S. citizen?” “What?” said Thomas. “We are citizens.” “Vote? You already can vote?” “Sure, back in 1924 we got the vote. After the black man, after the women. But we got the vote.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman

“My therapist calls it grieving the first call.” “What does that mean?” “She says when something happens, good or bad, you can only call one person first. And if you’ve been somebody’s first call, it’s hard not to be their first call anymore. She says it’s one of the reasons why parents sometimes feel sad when their kids are getting married. It’s not just the empty nest. They’re not the first call anymore.”
― Linda Holmes, Evvie Drake Starts Over

“You took care of people by not letting them know how badly you wanted your life to be different.”
― Kevin Wilson, Nothing to See Here

“I started to care less about the future. I cared more about making the present tolerable.”
― Kevin Wilson, Nothing to See Here

“Growing up in this town, I had long ago learned that the savagery of a man named Mohammed was rarely questioned, but his humanity always had to be proven.”
― Laila Lalami, The Other Americans

“Sometimes you simply needed someone kind to sit with you while you dealt with things.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“I simply didn't know how to make things better. I could not solve the puzzle of me.”
― Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

“The opposite of racist isn't 'not racist.' It is 'anti-racist.' What's the difference? One endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an anti-racist. One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an anti-racist. One either allows racial inequities to persevere, as a racist, or confronts racial inequities, as an anti-racist. There is no in-between safe space of 'not racist.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“Black people are apparently responsible for calming the fears of violent cops in the way women are supposedly responsible for calming the sexual desires of male rapists.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“The good news is that racist and antiracist are not fixed identities. We can be a racist one minute and an antiracist the next. What we say about race, what we do about race, in each moment, determines what -- not who -- we are.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“Americans have long been trained to see the deficiencies of people rather than policy. It's a pretty easy mistake to make: People are in our faces. Policies are distant. We are particularly poor at seeing the policies lurking behind the struggles of people.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“White supremacists love what America used to be, even though America used to be--and still is--teeming with millions of struggling White people. White supremacists blame non-White people for the struggles of White people when any objective analysis of their plight primarily implicates the rich White Trumps they support.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“Everybody changes, Ellie figured. Everybody starts out as one kind of person and ends up being somebody else. … Even when you don't notice it, life is rearranging you.”
― Connie Schultz, The Daughters of Erietown

“I rocked you in my arms and I realized that none of us had ever been enough for Brick McGinty.”
― Connie Schultz, The Daughters of Erietown

“This was the job of a parent: to fuck up, over and over again. This was the job of a child: to grow up anyway.”
― Emma Straub, All Adults Here

“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved