Debora > Debora's Quotes

“When God Created Mothers"

When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of "overtime" when the angel appeared and said. "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one."

And God said, "Have you read the specs on this order?" She has to be completely washable, but not plastic. Have 180 moveable parts...all replaceable. Run on black coffee and leftovers. Have a lap that disappears when she stands up. A kiss that can cure anything from a broken leg to a disappointed love affair. And six pairs of hands."

The angel shook her head slowly and said. "Six pairs of hands.... no way."

It's not the hands that are causing me problems," God remarked, "it's the three pairs of eyes that mothers have to have."

That's on the standard model?" asked the angel. God nodded.

One pair that sees through closed doors when she asks, 'What are you kids doing in there?' when she already knows. Another here in the back of her head that sees what she shouldn't but what she has to know, and of course the ones here in front that can look at a child when he goofs up and say. 'I understand and I love you' without so much as uttering a word."

God," said the angel touching his sleeve gently, "Get some rest tomorrow...."

I can't," said God, "I'm so close to creating something so close to myself. Already I have one who heals herself when she is sick...can feed a family of six on one pound of hamburger...and can get a nine year old to stand under a shower."

The angel circled the model of a mother very slowly. "It's too soft," she sighed.

But tough!" said God excitedly. "You can imagine what this mother can do or endure."

Can it think?"

Not only can it think, but it can reason and compromise," said the Creator.

Finally, the angel bent over and ran her finger across the cheek.

There's a leak," she pronounced. "I told You that You were trying to put too much into this model."

It's not a leak," said the Lord, "It's a tear."

What's it for?"

It's for joy, sadness, disappointment, pain, loneliness, and pride."

You are a genius, " said the angel.

Somberly, God said, "I didn't put it there.”
― Erma Bombeck, When God Created Mothers

“I was also sick of my neighbors, as most Parisians are. I now knew every second of the morning routine of the family upstairs. At 7:00 am alarm goes off, boom, Madame gets out of bed, puts on her deep-sea divers’ boots, and stomps across my ceiling to megaphone the kids awake. The kids drop bags of cannonballs onto the floor, then, apparently dragging several sledgehammers each, stampede into the kitchen. They grab their chunks of baguette and go and sit in front of the TV, which is always showing a cartoon about people who do nothing but scream at each other and explode. Every minute, one of the kids cartwheels (while bouncing cannonballs) back into the kitchen for seconds, then returns (bringing with it a family of excitable kangaroos) to the TV. Meanwhile the toilet is flushed, on average, fifty times per drop of urine expelled. Finally, there is a ten-minute period of intensive yelling, and at 8:15 on the dot they all howl and crash their way out of the apartment to school.” (p.137)”
― Stephen Clarke, A Year in the Merde

“Well, yelling real loud, that's an important skill to have, too. You never know when you might walk right in front of a train and her yelling's all that stands between you and eternity. But for that yell, you'd be flat, and there's nothing worse than a flat boy, just kind of ruins the day for everyone.”
― Diane Hammond, Hannah's Dream

“If you expect nothing from somebody you are never disappointed.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.”
― Bruce Lee

“When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Know that everything is in perfect order whether you understand it or not.”
― Valery Satterwhite

“The secret self knows the anguish of our attachments and assures us that letting go of what we think we must have to be happy is the same as letting go of our unhappiness.”
― Guy Finley

“If you're horrible to me, I'm going to write a song about it, and you won't like it. That's how I operate.”
― Taylor Swift

“You should be nicer to him,' a schoolmate had once said to me of some awfully ill-favored boy. 'He has no friends.' This, I realized with a pang of pity that I can still remember, was only true as long as everybody agreed to it.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“1. Bullying is not okay. Period.

2. Freedom of religion does not give you the right to physically or verbally assault people.

3. If your sincerely-held religious beliefs require you to bully children, then your beliefs are fucked up.”
― Jim C. Hines

“Often the right path is the one that may be hardest for you to follow. But the hard path is also the one that will make you grow as a human being.”
― Karen Mueller Coombs, Bully at Ambush Corner

“The singing stopped when I walked in. They all turned and stared at me, Bonne-Bell-Orange-Crush-glossed mouths hanging open, looking at me with the same horror and excitement they'd exhibit it I had just walked into the room naked. I stood there frozen, hyperaware of my scruffiness, my shirt untucked and one ponytail higher than the other. The Bad Dog turned me in on myself like a vortex, gleefully saying, Look, look. There they are, here you are. Separate. You do not belong.”
― Stacy Pershall

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown myself. I meant to swim till I sank -- but that's not the same thing.”
― Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer and other stories

“I Wanna Hold Your Hand.’ First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have a feeling that they can’t hide.”
― Rachel Cohn, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

“Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.”
― Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

“Oh, I love hugging. I wish I was an octopus, so I could hug 10 people at a time!”
― Drew Barrymore

“Now I know why the Lord took his day off on Sunday. That must be the day he personally greets his favorites.”
― Jason F. Wright, The Wednesday Letters

“But until a person can say deeply and honestly, "I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday," that person cannot say, "I choose otherwise.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“Most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“Two people can see the same thing, disagree, and yet both be right. It's not logical; it's psychological.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“It is one thing to make a mistake, and quite another thing not to admit it. People will forgive mistakes, because mistakes are usually of the mind, mistakes of judgment. But people will not easily forgive the mistakes of the heart, the ill intention, the bad motives, the prideful justifying cover-up of the first mistake.”
― Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“Habit 1: Be Proactive
Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Habit 3: Put First Things First
Habit 4: Think Win/Win
Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
Habit 6: Synergize
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw”
― Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny.”
― Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

“At some time in your life, you probably had someone believe in you when you didn't believe in yourself.”
― Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!”
― Audrey Hepburn

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
― Plato

“Death doesn't exist. It never did, it never will. But we've drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we've got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, an end, a darkness. Nothing.”
― Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes