Jennifer Chiaverini > Quotes

“One can never had too many librarian friends.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, The Wedding Quilt

“Sometimes the most ordinary things are the ones we learn to miss the most.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, The Quilter's Apprentice

“Anna, falling in love with you was like coming home to a place I didn't realize I'd been missing all my life. You're the only person I've ever known who accepts me for who I am, right in this moment, faults and all, and isn't waiting for me to become someone else.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, The Wedding Quilt

“Perhaps Germany will serve as a warning,” said Arvid. “May they learn from us to snuff out fascism in America when the first sparks arise and not delay until democracy goes up in flames all around them.” “This could never happen in America. A nation that elected Franklin Delano Roosevelt would never elect a madman populist.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Resistance Women

“Ignorant people, whispering cruel rumors, her mother whispered. Pay them no mind.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Sonoma Rose

“She would almost prefer to fold her arms and sink into an eternal slumber, so that the great longing of her soul for peaceful rest would at last be gratified.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

“loving one’s children does not guarantee that one will never fail them,”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Enchantress of Numbers

“The union of their shared lives could be a masterpiece, even if the colors of one piece clashed with another, even if uneven stitches showed, even if, from time to time, they had to pick out seams, realign the pieces, and sew them back together again. It would not be perfect, but it could be beautiful, if they worked together and persevered.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, The Wedding Quilt

“On Christmas Day, the promise of peace offered a soft and shining light in dark times, an eternal flame that warfare could not douse, nor hatred extinguish.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Christmas Bells

“Hope is never false. One's hopes may not be fulfilled, but that doesn't not mean it was wrong to hope”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, The Spymistress

“I fear that people do indeed know what Hitler wants, and what he intends, and that is precisely why they vote for him. Not because they misunderstand him, but because they understand him very well, and approve.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Resistance Women

“Mr Lincoln suggested that the Lord sent us this terrible war as punishment for the offense of slavery and that the war may be a mighty scourge to rid US of it”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

“We used to say he must've met you in the fiction section.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Christmas Bells

“May the New Year be as full of happiness and peace and friendship.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Christmas Bells

“Then it occurred to her (Elizabeth Keckley) that if Tad (Lincoln’s son) had been a colored boy rather than the son of a president, and a teacher had found him so difficult to instruct, he would have been ridiculed as a dunce and held up as evidence of the inferiority of the entire race. Tad was bright; Elizabeth knew that well, and she was sure that with proper instruction and hard work, a glimmer of his father’s genius would show in him too. But Elizabeth knew many black boys Tad’s age who could read and write beautifully, and yet the myth of inferiority persisted. The unfairness of the assumptions stung. If a white child appeared dull, the entire race was deemed unintelligent. It seemed to Elizabeth that if one race should not judged by a single example, then neither should any other.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

“Who said you had to fill his shoes?" said Karen. "Wear your own shoes. They're bound to fit better. Walk your own path your own way and you'll be more likely to get to where you need to be".”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, The Giving Quilt

“All people—white and colored, slave and free, Union and Confederate—shared a common humanity belied by their outward differences. In a time of discord, in a land torn by war, no truth was more important to remember than that.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Christmas Bells

“And of course you believed their wise counsel," said Elizabeth lightly, "because people who have never met me are always the best judge of my character.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

“The sublimity of witnessing the ruler of a mighty nation turning to Holy Scripture for comfort and courage, and finding both in his darkest hour, brought tears to her eyes, and she was obliged to quickly compose herself before returning to Mrs. Lincoln’s side.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

“What's the point of having the personal cell phone number of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff if you don't call him every once in a while?”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Christmas Bells

“Scapegoating Jews—or Communists, Poles, women, immigrants—was the refuge of the lazy, envious, and unimaginative. It made the world an ugly, hostile place to live in and did nothing to solve any actual problems.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Resistance Women

“Her greatest legacy could not be measured in garments or in words, but in the wisdom she had imparted, in the lives made better because she had touched them.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

“The world is never ready for any innovation,” he grumbled. “The vast majority of people stubbornly cling to the past until people possessing foresight and a sense of adventure break a trail and bring them into the future.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Enchantress of Numbers

“Darling, you must never become accustomed to the extraordinary and the outrageous. If you do, little by little, you'll learn to accept anything.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Resistance Women

“The Moses of her people had fallen in the hour of his triumph. His tragic death was all the more heartbreaking because he had not lived to enjoy the peace he had toiled so long to achieve.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

“They who had already crossed the river into the land of freedom were obliged to turn and offer a hand to those who were taking their first tentative steps upon the shore, and Elizabeth resolved to do exactly that.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

“After Jule fled, so dignified in her anger, Julia had begun to question whether slavery was necessary at all, or merely selfish. Watching the colored soldiers in Union blue march and drill and suffer in military hospitals, observing that the end of slavery in Washington City and elsewhere had not brought about the economic ruin advocates of the “peculiar institution” had ominously predicted, Julia realized that the answer was obvious. She had simply been too concerned with her own comforts to see it.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Mrs. Grant and Madame Jule

“Women employees were reportedly hired for their personal attractions rather than their skills, and several young ladies claimed that they were refused employment until they yielded to the passionate embraces of the superintendent of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker

“Intolerable wrongs we accept now as a matter of course would have provoked marches in the streets and calls for new elections only a few years ago.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Resistance Women

“How could anyone vote for the party of Adolf Hitler?” Sara’s mother had wondered aloud, aghast, after the results had come in. “He served nine months in prison for treason.”

“People are struggling,” Sara replied, thinking of her fellow students, their weary faces, their threadbare clothes, their grim prospects, their anger and hopelessness. “They can’t find work and they’re afraid of what the future holds.”

“Then along comes this loud, angry man,” Natan said, “promising to take them back to a mythical golden age of prosperity, swearing to punish Germany’s enemies for wronging them. Some people respond to that—in this case, vast numbers of people.”
― Jennifer Chiaverini, Resistance Women