Tapestry of Fortunes

by Elizabeth Berg

history is shaped by the belief systems of those who made it.

there are times when you have to hurt badly in order to move. Otherwise, you’ll stay in a place you’ve outgrown.

Once you start making decisions in which your heart, mind, and soul are congruent, you’ll feel it as a kind of lift, if not liftoff.

“Once you’ve made up your mind to do a good and true thing, the universe will go out of its way to help you.”

There is a lot of satisfaction, a lot of joy, that can come from doing something you love and that you’re good at,

But you know what usually happens when you take a vacation to a place that galvanizes you and makes you feel like you’re going to change your life. You come home and get right back into your old habits. Meanwhile, a slow fire burns.

welcome antidote to the speed of modern life. By their very nature, letters allow for more consideration of the words and thoughts that someone is offering you, in part because they prevent interruption.

What does anyone say to anybody who used to be so important in her life, whom she’s not seen in such a long time? It seems to me that in situations like this, we’re all wondering the same thing: I’m still me; are you still you?

One thing about doing this kind of work, you develop a keen appreciation for the fact that you can walk. And see the sky. And feel the air on your face. And that you can check high and low and no, nothing in your body is hurting, not one thing.

Some people have no more burden than an avocado going bad.”

“It’s not always a good idea, digging around in the past,” he said. “I done that once. I went to see the girl who got away. And I remembered real soon why I let her get away.”

Already I’ve seen that when you’re pulled away from your normal routine, it’s as though air and sunlight come into your brain and do a little housecleaning.

one of the hardest things in life is fessing up to what you want most, because if you do that, and you don’t get it, it’s so hard to be without it.

There’s nothing like getting in trouble to make you feel young.

I hate this yin-yang life that is always pulling the rug out from beneath your feet.

The best things in life have no hard evidence to support them. Hope. Faith. Love.

“I don’t think Martha’s so bad. I think I want her for a friend instead of you. When I look at her magazine, I feel soothed. When I talk to you, I feel like hanging myself.”

funny

I never saw the point in going out to fancy restaurants. It’s not that I don’t appreciate good food; I love good food. But why go to all this trouble? Why put on fancy clothes to eat?

I should have said “powder room.” That would evoke the image of me sitting before a beautiful gold mirror, a vase of fresh flowers nearby, freshening my makeup, rather than sitting on a toilet.

Divorce is a series of internal earthquakes, that’s what it is, one after the other.

Joke or not, something is occurring to me. You live your life, and you get to ask for things, and sometimes they are given to you.

Oh, why isn’t there a Community Center for People Who Need a Little Something? If people would only tell the truth about the way they felt, it would be busy all the time. There could be folding chairs arranged in groups, people sitting there saying, “I don’t know, I just wanted to come here for a while.”