quotes by Rebecca Wells

""Sidda can't help herself. She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves the black letters marching across the white pages...""
— Rebecca Wells (Little Altars Everywhere)

"She used to say she could taste sleep and that it was as delicious as a BLT on fresh French bread."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"She longed for porch friendship, for the sticky, hot sensation of familiar female legs thrown over hers in companionship. She pined for the girliness of it all, the unplanned, improvisational laziness. She wanted to soak the words 'time management' out of her lexicon. She wanted to hand ouver, to yield, to let herself float down the unchartered beautiful fertile musky swamp of life, where creativity and eroticism and deep intelligence dwell."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"What does my smile look like now? Vivi wondered. Can you reclaim that free-girl smile, or is it like virginity- once you loose it, that's it?"
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"See, she goes places when she reads. I know all about that. When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else."
— Rebecca Wells (Little Altars Everywhere: A Novel)

"'I try to believe,' she said, 'that God doesn't give you more than one little piece of the story at once. You know, the story of your life. Otherwise your heart would crack wider than you could handle. He only cracks it enough so you can still walk, like someone wearing a cast. But you've still got a crack running up your side, big enough for a sapling to grow out of. Only no one sees it. Nobody sees it. Everybody thinks you're one whole piece, and so they treat you maybe not so gentle as they could see that crack.'"
— Rebecca Wells

"His tall, lanky body had the wrinkles of sleep, and he smelled like cotton and dreams."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"Life is short, but it is wide. Genevieve Whitman taught me that."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

""Listen to me, Siddalee, and listen good: There is no excuse to let your looks go, no matter how poor you are. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, but honey let me tell you, ugliness will get you nowhere.""
— Rebecca Wells (Little Altars Everywhere)

"...you do not have too many boogeymen for me. You have just the right number."
— Rebecca Wells

"Friends are supposed to act like harbor boats—let you know if you’re off course. But it ain’t always possible…"
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to. This is something that I've struggled with my whole life long."
— Rebecca Wells (Little Altars Everywhere: A Novel)

"But all she wanted to do was lie in bed, eat Kraft macaroni and cheese, and hide from the alligators."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"She leaned down and smelled the skin at Connor's shoulders right at the spots where, as Martha Graham might have said, his own wings might have been attached."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"Once the scent caught me on the street in Greenwich Village. I stopped in my tracks and looked around. Where was it coming from? A shop? The trees? A passerby? I could not tell. I only knew the smell made me cry. I stood on the sidewalk in Greenwich Village as people brushed by, and felt suddenly young and terribly open, as if I were waiting for something. I live in an ocean of smell, and the ocean is my mother."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"Smoke, drink and never think"
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"A scent that disturbs me and delights me. It smells like ripe pears, vetiver, a bit of violet and something else- something spicy almost biting and exotic."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"I want to lay up like that, to float unstructured, without ambition or anxiety. I want to inhabit my life like a porch."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"I try to believe that God doesn't give you more than one little piece of the story at once. You know, the story of your life. Otherwise your heart would crack wider than you could handle. He only cracks it enough so you can still walk, like someone wearing a cast. But you've still got a crack running up your side, big enough for a sapling to grow out of. Only no one sees it. Nobody sees it. Everybody thinks you're one whole piece, and so they treat you maybe not so gentle as they would if they could see the crack."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

""i have been to the edge and lived to tell the tale..""
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"It’s life. You don’t figure it out. You just climb up on the beast and ride."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"The very air they breathed was almost a juice."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"There is the truth of history, and there is the truth of what a person remembers. As {she} sat at the edge of {the lake}, memory blossoms floated unbounded, as though breathed, no words spoken. Like birds that fly across national borders, between countries at war at each other."
— Rebecca Wells (Little Altars Everywhere: A Novel)

"Sidda sank down into the wide flannel embrace of their bodies, and she rested. For a moment she died a little death, they died it together."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"The soft aroma of old worn cotton from a linen chest, the lingering smell of tobacco on an angora sweater; Jergen's hand lotion, sauteed green peppers and onions; the sweet, nutty smell of peanut butter and bananas, the oaken smell of good bourbon. A combination of lily of the valley, cedar, vanilla, and somewhere, the lingering of old rose. These smells are older than any thought. Mama, Teensy, Neecie, and Caro, each one of them had an individual scent, to be sure. But this is the Gumbo of their scents. This is the Gumbo Ya-Ya. This is the internal vial of perfume I carry with me everywhere I go."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"Our Lady of Cheribim Chit-Chat"
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"In the crook of the crescent moon sits the Holy Lady, with strong muscles and a merciful heart. She kicks her her splendid legs like the moon is her swing and the sky, her front porch. She waves down at Sidda like she has just spotted an old buddy."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"This is a cardinal Ya-Ya rule: you must meet each person's eyes while clinking glasses in a toast. Otherwise, the ritual has no meaning, it's just pure show. And that is something the Ya-Yas are not."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"Of all the secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood the most divine was humor."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"There had been a mighty sexual attraction between them when they were young. An attraction that had waned - not so much with years, but from the exhaustion of trying to survive each other."
— Rebecca Wells

"I try to believe that God doesn't give you more than one little piece of the story at once. You know, the story of your life. Otherwise your heart would crack wider than you could handle. He only cracks it enough so you can still walk, like someone wearing a cast. But you've still got a crack running up your side, bug enough for a sapling to grow out of. Only no one sees it. Nobody sees it. Everybody thinks you're one whole piece, and so they treat you maybe not so gentle as they would if they could see that crack."
— Rebecca Wells

"Vivi swung wide in her waltzes with angels, in her jousting with demons ..."
— Rebecca Wells

"At the beauty of what she had stumbled onto, at the fear that something terrible would happen because she was not vigilant enough. She cried at the fear of something so good that she would not be brave enough to bear it."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"I live in an ocean of smell…"
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"But who has time to write memoirs? I’m still living my memoirs."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)

"…the love we most cherish will, of necessity, bring us pain. Because that love is like the setting of a body with broken bones. But I want to stage the setting. I want to direct all scenes."
— Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)