Laura Perkinson > Laura's Quotes

“I am not a smart man, particularly, but one day, at long last, I stumbled from the dark woods of my own, and my family's, and my country's past, holding in my hands these truths: that love grows from the rich loam of forgiveness; that mongrels make good dogs; that the evidence of God exists in the roundness of things. This much, at least, I've figured out. I know this much is true.”
― Wally Lamb, I Know This Much Is True

“A reminder to remember: just because the sharpness of the sadness has faded does not mean that it was not, once, terrible. It means only that time and space, creatures of infinite girth and tenderness, have stepped between the two of you, and they are keeping you safe as they were once unable to.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“This was maybe best of all. I never once expected to be someone's nice surprise.”
― Leif Enger, Virgil Wander

“People will risk everything for a little bit of something beautiful.”
― Kate Elizabeth Russell, My Dark Vanessa

“I wanted to hold happiness in reserve, like a bottle of champagne. I postponed it because I was afraid, because I overvalued it, and then I didn't want to use it up, because what do you wish for then?”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, The Man of My Dreams

“When the earth is cracking behind your feet and it feels like the whole world is going to swallow you up, you put one foot in front of the other and you keep going. You go forward. And do you know what happens if you don’t? No. Ha! Neither do I, angel. Neither do I.”
― Bess Kalb, Nobody Will Tell You This But Me: A True (As Told to Me) Story

“Remember that darkness simply requires another way of seeing. Be your own light. And just like that, you’ll find yourself everywhere instantly.”
― Quan Barry, We Ride Upon Sticks

“In reality, happiness is so elusive it may as well be supernatural.”
― marie-helene bertino, Parakeet

“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.”
― Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking

“When I tell you all shall be well, I don’t mean that life won’t bring you tragedy. Life will be life. I only mean you will be well in spite of it. All shall be well, no matter what.”
― Sue Monk Kidd, The Book of Longings

“How do you find happiness?” Anna paused, then said, “You start by looking right around you for the blessings you have.”
― Mark T. Sullivan, Beneath a Scarlet Sky

“We barely get any time on this planet. Do not spend it pleasing other people. Fuck politeness. Live life exactly how you want to live it so you can love the life you make for yourself.”
― Karen Kilgariff, Stay Sexy & Don't Get Murdered: The Definitive How-To Guide

“You return to that earlier time armed with the present, and no matter how dark that world was, you do not leave it unlit. You take your adult self with you. It is not to be a reliving, but a rewitnessing.”
― Michael Ondaatje, Warlight

“When life held your hand in the flames, it taught you something about the kind of burning you can endure. You survived: don’t forget that, and don’t diminish it. KEEP MOVING.”
― Maggie Smith, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change

“I squat there and think about how you get trained early on as a woman to perceive how others are perceiving you, at the great expense of what you yourself are feeling about them. Sometimes you mix the two up in a terrible tangle that’s hard to unravel.”
― Lily King, Writers & Lovers

“Everything is broken and messed up and completely fine. That is what life is. It’s only the ratios that change. Usually on their own. As soon as you think that’s it, it’s going to be like this forever, they change again.”
― Meg Mason, Sorrow and Bliss

“There was something very special, but it wasn't inside Josie. It was inside those who loved her.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Klara and the Sun

“There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you’d never be able to let go? Now you’re not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well, until one morning you’re picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you’ve ever wanted in the world.”
― Ann Patchett, Tom Lake

“It was wonderful, thought Tracy, having friends like these, who seemed to see the parts of yourself you worked hardest to hide, and bring them into the light and celebrate them with a sort of tender ribbing that uplifted more than it put down.”
― Liz Moore, The God of the Woods

“As he had once written, "I believe that he who learns only how to obey orders can never be a great explorer.”
― Hampton Sides, The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook

“I wept for joy because I could escape, and for sorrow I must leave alone.”
― Allegra Goodman, Isola

“The people who don't get you are not your problem. Sitting around and thinking of all the people who don't love you or don't wanna hang out with you just diminishes your own light. Focus on where the light and love come from and park yourself in front of that. There are many moments in life when your own light is all you need.”
― Chelsea Handler, I'll Have What She's Having

“He was nobody's fool; he knew he was going to die. But he never stopped trying to live.”
― Adam Higginbotham, Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

“I tell myself not to count the years ahead in which she might never again come, but rather cherish the days she has given me of her own free will, when she lowered her species’ instinctive guard against humans, and shared the beauty and mystery of her presence in silent and graceful companionship. I will remember her leaving, but I will always know that before she did, she always, first, looked back.”
― Chloe Dalton, Raising Hare: A Memoir

“I know how much you've longed for your future to lean down and cup your face, to whisper 'don't worry, it gets better'. The truth is, it wont get better if you keep making the same mistakes. It can get better, but you must allow yourself to imagine a world in which you are better.”
― Kaliane Bradley, The Ministry of Time

“She loved him and always would. He had both ruined her life and made it extraordinary.”
― Darrow Farr, The Bombshell

“If you learn from the times you go wrong, you can revel in the times you don’t.”
― Chris Whitaker, All the Colors of the Dark

“But when someone’s gone and you’re the primary keeper of his memory—letting go would be a kind of murder, wouldn’t it? I had so much love for him, even if it was a complicated love, and where is all that love supposed to go? He was gone, so it couldn’t change, it couldn’t turn to indifference. I was stuck with all that love.”
― Rebecca Makkai, The Great Believers

“I have loved you all my life,' I whisper. 'See you after the next bang.”
― Lily King, Heart the Lover

“Someday we will remember even these our hardships with pleasure.”
― Lily King, Heart the Lover