Cheryl > Cheryl's Quotes

“Somehow, while we had all been busy, while we had been doing those small things that added up to living, the future had slipped into the present - and despite the fact that we had known that it would come, the overwhelming feeling, now that it was here, was of surprise, like waking up one morning to find that you had been young, and now all at once you weren't.”
― Jessie Greengrass, The High House

“I found it strange that no word exists for a parent who loses a child. If children lose their parents, they are orphans. If a husband loses his wife, he’s a widower. But there’s no word for a parent who loses a child. I’ve come to believe that the event is just too big, too monstrous, too overwhelming for words. No word could ever describe the feeling, so we leave it unsaid.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Anger is exhausting. Holding on to it will drain the life out of you.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“THE DASH SADDENS ME. THE SIMPLICITY MISSES SO much. It doesn’t allow for all the downs that bring a person low or the joys that lift them up. All the bends and turns that make up a lifetime are flattened and erased. The dash on a tombstone is wholly inadequate. Everything around it is more remarkable. The name, etched in cursive or dignified fonts. Sometimes a photo is carved into the grey granite, giving life to the dead. Yet the dash, that line that carries the entire sum of a life within it, is unremarkable.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Hope is such a wonderful thing until it isn’t.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Time quickens the older you get, as if the universe is trying to push you toward the finish line, to make room for the younger, the stronger, to mark your brief place in history and move on.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“It’s funny what you remember when something goes wrong.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Alice once said that anger and sadness are just two different sides of the same coin.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Own your mistakes, make amends and move on.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“I don’t have time for regret, or the emotional strength it requires. I see the world unfolding as it is meant to. Sometimes I have trouble finding meaning in the things that happen to me, but I assume that the universe knows what it’s doing.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Let those tears flow. Alice always said that holding in tears is like holding in pee—it’s gonna hurt eventually, so you might as well let them go as soon as you feel them.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“The need for conformity and for the attention of others can lead to a life of misery.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Even people who exude light and happiness have dark secrets. Sometimes, the lie becomes so entrenched it becomes the truth, hidden away in the deep recesses of the mind until death erases it, leaving the world a little different. Secrets and lies can take on a life of their own, they can be twisted and manipulated, or they can burst into the world from the mouth of someone just as they are starting to lose their mind.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Did I get lonely? Of course, but those bouts of loneliness passed quickly, and I could always find comfort in my own company. Alice told me this is a strength that many people don’t have. The need for conformity and for the attention of others can lead to a life of misery.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“There are things more important in this world than taking credit,”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“Words are powerful and funny things, said or unsaid.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“And the dead don’t mind when we remember them and pass on their stories.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“All things take time. Grief can be wide and feel bottomless sometimes, but eventually, it begins to subside, to grow into something useful.”
― Amanda Peters, The Berry Pickers

“It's an unimaginative accusation and one that I am frankly tired of hearing. Witchcraft. As though there is no other explanation for a woman who excels at her work.”
― Ariel Lawhon, The Frozen River

“I’ve always thought most politicians are clueless. They have too much damn money, don’t live in the real world and care more about publicity and what things look like than the people they’re supposed to represent.”
― Kathryn Meyer Griffith, Dinosaur Lake

“If only. The two most pointless words in the English language.”
― Mary Lawson, Road Ends