Laura L. > Laura's Quotes

“I think that’s the hardest lesson I have had to learn as a parent; no matter how much I try, I am not able to guarantee my sons’ happiness and success.”
― Adele Parks, Both of You

“Someone can decide it’s in their best interests to agree to something, but a choice is only really a choice if there’s a genuine alternative. Otherwise it’s manipulation and it’s taking advantage.”
― Jane Harper, The Lost Man

“Because that's the one thing women are never, ever allowed to be. We can be sad, distraught, confused, pleading, forgiving. But not furious. Fury is reserved for other people. The worst thing you can be is an angry woman, an angry mother”
― Amy Engel, The Familiar Dark

“No one wants to die,” said Becka. “But some people don’t want to live in any of the ways that are allowed.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“knowledge is power, especially discreditable knowledge.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“Keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Having no friends, I must make do with enemies.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“You pride yourself on being a realist, I told myself, so face the facts. There’s been a coup, here in the United States, just as in times past in so many other countries. Any forced change of leadership is always followed by a move to crush the opposition. The opposition is led by the educated, so the educated are the first to be eliminated.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“In her experience, prefacing a statement with “To be honest” or “To tell you the truth” is a sure sign you’re telling someone else what to believe—such as what was “good” for her, in this instance.”
― Alafair Burke, Find Me

“How can I have behaved so badly, so cruelly, so stupidly? you will ask. You yourself would never have done such things! But you yourself will never have had to.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“Truth is, there's no good way to navigate being female in this world. If you speak out, say no, stand your ground, you're a bitch and a harpy, and whatever happens to you is your own fault. You had it coming. But if you smile, say yes, survive on politeness, you're weak and desperate. An easy mark. Prey in a world full of predators. There are no risk-free options for women, no choices that don't come back to smack us in the face.”
― Amy Engel, The Familiar Dark

“Nobody has any authority on the fucks that other people give.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“It will soon be a new year,” his grandfather said into this silence, “and new years are always more revealing than old ones. You will make your decision, and it will be yes or no, and the years will keep ending and beginning and ending and beginning, whatever you choose.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, To Paradise

“new philosophy in education was that children would grow into healthier, better citizens and adults if they were exposed not just to the necessities of life (math, reading, writing) but to art and music and sport as well.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, To Paradise

“You make concessions when you're married a long time that you don't believe you'll ever make when you're beginning. You say to yourself when you're young, oh, I wouldn't tolerate this or that or the other thing, you say love is the most important thing in the world and there's only one kind of love and it makes you feel different than you feel the rest of the time, like you're all lit up. But time goes by and you've slept together a thousand nights and smelled like spit-up when babies are sick and seen your body droop and get soft. And some nights you say to yourself, it's not enough, I won't put up with another minute. And then the next morning you wake up and the kitchen smells like coffee and the children have their hair all brushed and the birds are eating out of the feeder and you look at your husband and he's not the person you used to think he was but he's your life. The house and the children and so much more of what you do is built around him and your life, too, your history. If you take him out it's like cutting his face out of all the pictures, there's a big hole and it's ugly. It would ruin everything. It's more than love, it's more important than love...

It's hard. And it's hard to understand unless you're in it. And it's hard for you to understand now because of where you are and what you're feeling. But I wanted to say it...because I won't be able to say it when I need to, when it's one of those nights and you're locking the front door because of foolishness about romance, about how things are supposed to be. You can be hard, and you can be judgmental, and with those two things alone you can make a mess of your life the likes of which you won't believe. It's so much easier...the being happy. It's so much easier, to learn to love what you have instead of yearning always for what you're missing, or what you imagine you're missing. It's so much more peaceful.”
― Anna Quindlen, One True Thing