Rhonda Dreshar > Rhonda's Quotes

“I think I would tell her to see how he reacts when she doesn’t please him, when she doesn’t follow his unspoken rules. When she is too loud or accidentally breaks his favorite cup. When she wears something he doesn’t like or gets excited about something he doesn’t care about. Does he talk out both sides of his mouth? I’d ask. She’d know what I mean—does he find a way to make himself right when he’s wrong? Does he charm people with his endless wit and wisdom, and where does he want her to sit while he does it? And then there’s the other women, so good at deciding when a woman’s sexuality is her empowerment or her sluttiness. So wrapped up in keeping women in their place—whatever that place may look like—they forget that the rules they embrace are also their own bondage.”
― Bobi Conn, In the Shadow of the Valley: A Memoir

“When I sit alone at the end of the night, I realize this is my greatest triumph—to give my children the love and comfort I longed for, but which were not to be found in my childhood home.”
― Bobi Conn, In the Shadow of the Valley: A Memoir

“There’s about a hundred shades of green in a Minnesota summer, light like celery, deep like emeralds. You wouldn’t think one color could have so many different flavors.”
― Jess Lourey, Unspeakable Things

“Course, you know that only happens till you learn to hit back harder.”
― Jojo Moyes, The Giver of Stars

“They said I should teach her a lesson. I never got it, not even in the first flush of anger, when I thought she had pretty much stomped all over my heart. You beat a horse and you can break it all right. You can make it submit. But it’ll never forget. And it sure as hell won’t care for you. So if I wouldn’t do it to a horse, I could never work out why I should do it to a human.”
― Jojo Moyes, The Giver of Stars

“Alice had discovered how, for a woman at least, it was much easier to feel anger on behalf of someone you cared about, to access that cold burn, to want to make someone suffer if they had hurt someone you loved.”
― Jojo Moyes, The Giver of Stars

“The past has a habit of giving up its secrets, Richard. You only have to look in the right places.”
― M.J. Lee, The Irish Inheritance

“That's the beauty of genealogy, secrets reveal themselves over time in the most unlikely places.”
― M.J. Lee, The Irish Inheritance

“Ghosts are fractions of memory. Something within our mind is projecting out, so we think we can see it.”
― M.K. Jones, Three Times Removed

“Most family history research is just a trawl through records to find something that’s only meaningful to whoever’s looking. But sometimes a story stands out.”
― M.K. Jones, Three Times Removed

“We all think we’re self-aware, self-driven by our objective intellect, but we’re not. We’re closer to being robots driven by our evolutionary roots with just a sprinkling of free will and intellect. It’s a self-reinforcing dynamic; those that didn’t have a strong survival instinct perished, as did their bloodline. You and I are only here because thousands of generations have weeded out all those except for the ones that somehow figured out how to survive long enough to reproduce.”
― Mark A. Salter, Sins of the Tribe

“Look around, tribes are everywhere, the wealthy join country clubs, the working class join unions. Poor urban kids join gangs and rich suburban kids join frats and sororities. Of course, the most prominent tribes of our day are defined by religion and ethnicity and it’s tearing our national civility apart. Think of an inner-city child born into horrible conditions. For him, a street gang may be the only path to survival, at least in the moment.”
― Mark A. Salter, Sins of the Tribe

“When you find yourself completely powerless, take comfort: At your darkest hour, your character will find power within you.”
― Mark A. Salter, Sins of the Tribe

“She wants to tell her it’s okay. Smiling doesn’t mean she doesn’t care. It’s only a symptom of life carrying on, which inevitably it does. No matter how cataclysmic the events, and even in light of the worst tragedies, hearts continue to beat, lungs continue to draw air, and sometimes things continue to be funny.”
― Suzanne Redfearn, Hadley & Grace

“It’s always funny how a woman becomes “difficult” the moment she is seen to be good at what she does.”
― M.J. Lee, The Merchant's Daughter

“In a library, one only sees the world through the eyes of others, not oneself.”
― M.J. Lee, The Christmas Carol

“I learned a long time ago that my mother, well-meaning as she is, will find any opportunity to make important moments in my life about her. Like”
― Emily Bleeker, When We Were Enemies

“To life,’ she whispered, ‘you just have to keep going and enjoy it as much as you can.”
― M.J. Lee, The Missing Father

“The past is the past but it is also a reminder to never go along the same road again.”
― M.J. Lee, The Missing Father

“She used to say we all need to go home from time to time, to remind us where we came from.”
― Barbara Davis, The Last of the Moon Girls

“Then they become a warped kind of truth, a story we settle for because we prefer to remain in the dark with the monsters we know, rather than face new ones.”
― Barbara Davis, The Last of the Moon Girls

“Life is a series of decisions, and we have to deal with the consequences of those decisions.”
― Nadine Nettmann, The Bootlegger's Daughter

“The trick with grief was to outrun it. Never stop moving because it was always trailing close behind. Stop and think too long, and it would eat you right up. So, each day I kept moving until I was exhausted.”
― Mary Ellen Taylor, The Promise of Tomorrow

“A woman is never so late that she can’t spruce up her appearance.”
― Mary Ellen Taylor, The Promise of Tomorrow

“Letting go is hard . . . Traveling is magic, but magic runs out, if it’s not refreshed from time to time. I’ve never found the refresh button.”
― Mary Ellen Taylor, The Promise of Tomorrow

“I’m using a site called Automated Genealogy for the 1901 Canadian census. And here,” she pointed to the page on the screen, “it’s separated into the provinces first. So, we’ll pick Quebec, and the next screen shows all the districts. Which one should I choose?”
― Beth Farrar, Family Mistakes: Ellie McLellan Genealogy Mystery - Book 2

“And sometimes, one has to have faith in those you love not to do something that would harm you.”
― Beth Farrar, Family Mistakes: Ellie McLellan Genealogy Mystery - Book 2

“What happened, happened. I can’t change it. But I can deal with the now.”
― Beth Farrar, Family Mistakes: Ellie McLellan Genealogy Mystery - Book 2

“I know what he is. He’s the nicest guy in the room. He’s your best friend, as long as he gets what he wants. As long as things go according to his plan. But I’ve seen what’s behind all that charm—what comes out when nobody’s watching. What he’ll do to get what he thinks he deserves. He’ll leave you behind without thinking twice.”
― Tony Wirt, Pike Island

“So to those of you celebrating today, know that you won’t win. We’ll never stop fighting for equal rights for everyone. And to those five so-called judges on the Supreme Court who bowed to their puppet masters today . . . no matter what you do for the rest of your lives, you’ll never get the stink of this betrayal of justice off your bought-and-paid-for hides. Fuck you forever.”
― Tony Wirt, Pike Island