Emily Nelson Quotes

“These wrinkles are the hands of time,
The journeys I’ve been on
They’ve seen me through a thousand days,
And ev’ry victory won

These fragile hands, With exposed bones,
Are not a fearful sight
But rather, they, my faithful partners,
Rocked babies through the night

These eyes are weak, They see much less,
Than yours they’ve seen much more
They’ve guided me through birth, through death,
Through grief, through hurt, through war

These ears can hear so very little,
Yet they’ve learned to listen much
They perk up not for gossip now,
But for a heart to touch

Those younger often look my way,
With pity looks to give
Yet this old body doesn’t mean I am dying,
But rather, that I have lived”
― Emily Nelson

“The novel was simple, heartwarming, painful, and lovely, all in perfect doses." -Writer's Digest Review of Emily Nelson's The Locket”
― Emily Nelson

“I’m still scared,” I admitted suddenly, startling even myself. The old couple came back in, turning on the night light beside my bed to see my face by its glow, and sat beside me comfortably on the edge of the bed. I looked around the room and then at the elderly couple with eager eyes, as if they held the power to change the whole world.

“What if the monster comes back?” I asked with big eyes. Elsie snuggled against me, pushing the covers up underneath my chin and tucking them in tightly around my whole body, wrapping me in a cocoon of soft and downy comfort. As she smoothed back my hair tenderly, her touch felt like a fresh piece of heaven, a momentary brush with an angel. “Monsters aren’t real, honey,” she soothed, trying to comfort me. I imagined his threatening, glassy eyes flickering at me in that moment, peering over the bright flowers of the window boxes, ready to take my life instantaneously. My heart closed in on itself like the clanging, steel doors of a cage, feeling two sizes too small to hold all the pain within it. “Oh Elsie,” I whispered in hushed undertones, leaning closer to her face, sure he was out there, still listening just beyond my view, “Yes, they are.”
― Emily Nelson

“I watched him play every perfect chord as if it were an entire song, every song as if it were a grand sonata. The old man was lost in the captivating music and I was lost too—in his commanding presence, in his seamless movement, in his unmatched talent. His fingers floated effortlessly over the worn strings of the acoustic guitar, each one crossing over the other with calming ease. I found it hard to distinguish where one part ended and another began, inspiring and stirring my soul like a miracle.
Elsie watched him with great intent, with great wonder, as did I.

Then she got up from her leather armchair in the corner, walked over to the parlor grand piano, and joined in just as the song began to swell to its airy peak. They played together flawlessly, a man and a woman, for what could have been the thousandth time.

Yet as I watched them, as the music filled me like the warmth of coming home, I could see it was new to them too, though ancestral and old. I was swept away, amazed at how each part was so distinct, so solitary in and of itself, and how yet it could only capture its full potential, its full beauty, as a part of something greater. I thought of how we are all pieces of music, of how one person would cease to swell without the other, of how the part that moves us the most freely in ourselves might not exist at all.

I watched Johnny as he continued to strum, then Elsie as her fingers darted from place to place on the keys of the piano. The music swept over me like a memory of summertime, and I closed my eyes, letting it take me where it would, to a place so strikingly beautiful that everything else was silently perfect, letting the melody lead the moment. The hopeful sound filled my expectant ears and my emotions felt new again, as if I were a child, the moment peacefully pure, like rocking a newborn back to sleep. Wet streams of tears escaped my soft, emotional eyes as I let the notes take their full effect.

To Johnny and Elsie, music was a language that didn't require words. In fact, it exceeded them. For what was flowing from the withered hands of the couple before me now was in itself perfection. Words could only ruin a moment this pure. As I watched them, I realized I wanted to care about anything as much as they did about music.

A tear ran down my cheek as the last note hung softly, like a butterfly might hang on air. I decided right then that some things in life were much too beautiful not to cry about. This, I now knew, was one of them.”
― Emily Nelson

“Home is where your soul feels free.”
― Emily Nelson

“Often silence is the most dignified response.”
― Emily Nelson