Barb > Barb's Quotes

“I drop her on the cot and turn away and grab my hair and pull until it hurts. I want to pull all of it out. Every single piece. I want a pain I understand instead of the one I don’t. I want a pain that has a beginning and an end, not one that goes on forever and cuts all the way to the bone.”
― Lisa Wingate, Before We Were Yours

“I was born without a voice, one cold, overcast day in Brooklyn, New York. No one ever spoke of my condition. I did not know I was mute until years later, when I opened my mouth to ask for what I wanted and realized no one could hear me.”
― Etaf Rum, A Woman Is No Man

“Her powerlessness even comforted her somehow. Knowing that she couldn't change things - that she didn't have a choice - made living it more bearable.”
― Etaf Rum, A Woman Is No Man

“Sadness was like a cancer, she thought, a presence that staked it's claim so quietly you might not even notice it until it was too late. She hoped her other daughters didn't see.”
― Etaf Rum, A Woman Is No Man

“These rules were fascinating to me; the body dictating what you must do. I had fallen into the habit of neglecting my body, often forgetting to feed it, and when I was assaulted I refused even to look at it. Now my body was saying, you have to listen to me. You have to respect my needs. We have to work together or you will end up hurt.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name: A Memoir

“The trees were having a last bedtime drink of the great waters that flowed along down there. Like him, before they went to sleep. Beneath that layer of water he sensed beings. They moved so slowly that humans were usually not aware of their existence. But he did feel their movements down in those regions. And yet deeper, far deeper, below those beings, there was the fire of creation, which had been buried at the center of the earth by stars.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Night Watchman

“Place yourself before a hive, and see the indefatigable energy of these industrious veterans, toiling along with their heavy burdens, side by side with their more youthful compeers . . . Let the cheerful hum of their busy old age inspire you with better resolutions, and teach you how much nobler it is to die with harness on, in the active discharge of the duties of life.”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees

“On the other hand, wasn't that the very definitely of life? Constant adaptations brought about by a series of never-ending mistakes?”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“I don’t have hopes,” Mad explained, studying the address. “I have faith.” He looked at her in surprise. “Well, that’s a funny word to hear coming from you.” “How come?” “Because,” he said, “well, you know. Religion is based on faith.” “But you realize,” she said carefully, as if not to embarrass him further, “that faith isn’t based on religion. Right?”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“It was a form of naïveté, he thought, the way she continued to believe that all it took to get through life was grit. Sure, grit was critical, but it also took luck, and if luck wasn’t available, then help. Everyone needed help. But maybe because she’d never been offered any, she refused to believe in it.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“He’d not had much experience with families, but he’d always assumed that being part of one was important: a prerequisite for stability, what one relied on to get through the hard times. He’d never really considered that a family could actually be the hard times.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“Your days are numbered. Use them to throw open the windows of your soul to the sun,” a quote from Marcus Aurelius,”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“I used to tell myself every day was new. That anything could happen.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“she, like so many other women, assumed that downgrading someone of her own sex would somehow lift her in the estimation of her male superiors.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“You’re a scientist,” he said. “Your job is to question things—to search for answers. But sometimes—and I know this for a fact—there just aren’t any.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“When it came to equality, 1952 was a real disappointment.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“What’s wrong with believing in ourselves? Anyway, if stories must be used, why not rely on a fable or fairy tale? Aren’t they just as valid a vehicle for teaching morality? Except maybe better? Because no one has to pretend to believe that the fables and tales are true?”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“Hello, Creature, he transmitted as he pressed his ear into Elizabeth’s belly. It’s me, Six-Thirty. I’m the dog.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“Refuse to allow the bad thing to define you. Fight it.”
― Bonnie Garmus, Lessons in Chemistry

“what were my impressions upon viewing for the first time the manor where you’d had me brought? My initial thought was “Toad Hall.” This was, of course, an inadequate comparison but the best I could muster considering the limited number of books I’d read that centered on soaring Gothic structures. (As a boy, I went nine pages into The Hunchback of Notre Dame before realizing it wasn’t a football story.)”
― Rupert Holmes, Murder Your Employer

“how to let someone down without breaking their heart; knowing how to sit with someone who is suffering; knowing how to host a gathering where everyone feels embraced; knowing how to see things from another’s point of view.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen