quotes by Nora Ephron

"When you read a book as a child,it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your life does..."
— Nora Ephron

"I have made a lot of mistakes falling in love, and regretted
most of them, but never the potatoes that went with them."
— Nora Ephron

"Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim."
— Nora Ephron

"Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy."
— Nora Ephron

"Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address."
— Nora Ephron

"Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficity disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss. "
— Nora Ephron (I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman)

"So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?"
— Nora Ephron

"... the state of rapture I experience when I read a wonderful book
is one of the main reasons I read;
but it doesn't happen every time
or even every other time,
and when it does happen,
I am truly beside myself.

"
— Nora Ephron

"In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind. "
— Nora Ephron

"I always read the last page of a book first so that if I die before I finish I'll know how it turned out."
— Nora Ephron (Heartburn)

"There's a reason why forty, fifty, and sixty don't look the way they used to, and it's not because of feminism, or better living through exercise. It's because of hair dye. In the 1950's only 7 percent of American women dyed their hair; today there are parts of Manhattan and Los Angeles where there are no gray-haired women at all."
— Nora Ephron

"Summer bachelors like summer breezes, are never as cool as they pretend to be."
— Nora Ephron

"When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you."
— Nora Ephron (I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman)

"My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have to potential to be the comic stories the next."
— Nora Ephron

"If pregnancy were a book they would cut the last two chapters."
— Nora Ephron

"I look out the window and I see the lights and the skyline and the people on the street rushing around looking for action, love, and the world's greatest chocolate chip cookie, and my heart does a little dance."
— Nora Ephron (Heartburn)

"I have no desire to be dominated. Honestly I don't. And yet I find myself becoming angry when I'm not."
— Nora Ephron (Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women)

"And then the dreams break into a million tiny pieces. The dream dies. Which leaves you with a choice: you can settle for reality, or you can go off, like a fool, and dream another dream."
— Nora Ephron (Heartburn)

"I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it or because I haven't been brave?"
— Nora Ephron (You've Got Mail)

"When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first, that way incase I die, before I finish, I know how it ends. That my friend is a dark side."
— Nora Ephron (When Harry Met Sally)

""She's talking about condominiums," my friend Betty Searle called up to say one day. "Obviously she's involved with someone."
"Are you sure?" I said.
"Of course I'm sure," said Betty. "The question is who." She thought for a minute. "Maybe it's Senator Campbell," she said. "He's talking condominiums, too."
"Senators always talk about condominiums," I said.
"That's true," said Betty."
— Nora Ephron (Heartburn)

"You only have a certain amount of energy, and when you spread it around, everything gets confused, and the first thing you know, you can't remember which one you've told which story to, and the next thing you know, you're moaning "Oh, Morty, Morty, Morty," when what you mean is "Oh, Sidney, Sidney, Sidney," and the next thing you know, you think you're in love with both of them simply because you've been raised to believe that the only polite response to "I love you" is "I love you too," and the next thing you know, you think you're in love with only one of them, because you're too guilty to handle loving them both."
— Nora Ephron (Heartburn)

"[I] had gotten to the point where I simply could not make a bad vinaigrette, this was not exactly the stuff of drama. (Even now, I cannot believe Mark would want to risk losing that vinaigrette. You just don't bump into vinaigrettes that good.)"
— Nora Ephron (Heartburn)

""I know," I said, "but it scares me. It reminds me of my father."
"I'm not your father," said Mark. "Repeat after me, 'Mark Feldman is not my father.'"
"Mark Feldman is not my father," I said.
"Am I fat?" said Mark.
"No," I said.
"Am I bald?"
"No."
"Do I smell of Dr. Scholl's foot pads?"
"No," I said.
"I rest my case," said Mark."
— Nora Ephron (Heartburn)

""I know," I said, "but it scares me. It reminds me of my father."
"I'm not your father," said Mark. "Repeat after me, 'Mark Feldman is not my father.'"
"Mark Feldman is not my father," I said.
"Am I fat?" said Mark.
"No," I said.
"Am I bald?"
"No."
"Do I smell of Dr. Scholl's foot pads?"
"No," I said.
"I rest my case," said Mark."
— Nora Ephron (Heartburn)

""I know," I said, "but it scares me. It reminds me of my father."
"I'm not your father," said Mark. "Repeat after me, 'Mark Feldman is not my father.'"
"Mark Feldman is not my father," I said.
"Am I fat?" said Mark.
"No," I said.
"Am I bald?"
"No."
"Do I smell of Dr. Scholl's foot pads?"
"No," I said.
"I rest my case," said Mark."
— Nora Ephron (Heartburn)

"When I first met him, he had a recurrent nightmare that Henry Kissinger was chasing him with a knife, and I said it was really his father, and he said it was really Henry Kissinger, and I said it was his father and he said it was Henry Kissinger, and this went on for months until he started going to the Central American shrinkette, who said Henry Kissinger was really his younger sister."
— Nora Ephron (Heartburn)

"He loved Thelma, Jonathan said, he had never loved anyone but Thelma, he had loved Thelma for nineteen years and would always love her even though Thelma didn't give a rat's ass about him and never had."
— Nora Ephron (Heartburn)

"He was, in his way, as close to a Zen master as I've ever had, and all of us who fell under his influence began with his style and eventually ended up with our own."
— Nora Ephron (I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman)

"I lead a small life...well, valuable, but small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I want to, or because I haven't been brave?"
— Nora Ephron (You've Got Mail)

"If pregnancy were a book they would cut out the last two chapters."
— Nora Ephron