Happy All the Time Quotes

“Marriage, it turned out, was a series of small events.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“she fought to keep the ugly, chaotic world at bay and to keep a sweet, pretty corner to live in.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“I feel that weaving is a precise metaphor for the way in which life is made,” she said. “By which I mean individually constructed. Any strand can be woven in at the dictation of the imagination. I think of the philosophy of history as a loom of that sort. It is, isn’t it?”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“I’d like to go to all the knitting shops,” Doria said. “I want to see some rustic, hand-pulled yarn. I would also like to see some colonial fabrics, and, if possible, I would like to have some contact with a loom.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Holly sat down, as if at home. But, Guido wondered, would she be happy where there were no trays?”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Her research revealed that knitting was a very popular indoor sport and that a loom was on permanent display at the Wool Institute, which also had a few samples of colonial fabric.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Most of his time appeared to be spent bumming cigarettes from people whose annual income was about a fifth of his own.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Life is never smooth to the great-granddaughter of tin peddlers who were kicked out of Russia,' said Misty. 'It's no accident that all my family is in one embattled profession or another. We're just waiting for the Cossacks to come back. When the Cossacks come to Connecticut, you'll understand.'
Meanwhile, it was hard to feel much gloom at all, although to keep her balance, Misty clung to it wherever she found it.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“That simply means not being fraught,' said Holly. 'Not being caught up in the unnecessary tensions of modern life.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Misty sat in her office staring at the pear she had bought for her lunch. It was a hard, unripe little Seckel pear and the thought of eating it upset her. She sat reflecting on the civil war between her character and personality. One had trapped the other. Her character, she decided, was like the tender stomach of a porcupine and her personality was a bunch of quills. When the porcupine is frightened, she knew, it rolls itself up into a ball to protect its vulnerable stomach from harm. The enemy does not know how soft the porcupine is inside; only the porcupine does.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Misty's personality was a deliberate creation. She felt she was not unlike one of those seashells that look elaborate, but is only the housing for a very soft animal. There was no point—and no fun—in committing the imitative fallacy in matters of self, especially when the self you were housing was moved by scenes of ordinary human kindness. It seemed to her unwise to let the world at large know how easily moved she was, so she kept it to herself. Even John Bride, who behaved like a creature from another planet who had come to earth to see how its creatures might amuse him, was unaware of how deep her feelings were.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Guido found it curious that Vincent - who spent his life as a scientist analyzing - simply lived, while Guido, who simply lived, spent his his life analyzing.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Married life had to do with getting used to being married. Vincent’s advice was: “Just be married. That’s how you get used to it. Where on earth did you get this sense of profound gloom from, anyway?”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“She stared it straight in the face and saw that the condition that jealousy covered was simply envy mixed with fear.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“She stared it straight in the face and saw the the condition that jealousy covered was simply envy mixed with fear.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Aurélee drove somewhere to watch the hawks migrate. This is the week they migrate somewhere and she went to see it. So she isn’t here. Besides, a little revenge will do me good.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“I don't call it gossip. I call it "emotional speculation." --Misty to Holly”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“He was meditating on the generosity of friendship and on the feeling that one steps outside oneself in happiness for one’s friends.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Bè, quello che voglio dire è che sono abituata al nostro legame e mi piacerebbe distaccarmi proprio per sentirne tutta la forza. Non si può capire se non ritornando e non si può ritornare se non ci si è distaccati.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Todo había terminado, se dijo. Lo que había terminado era la persona que, hasta la víspera, había sido toda su vida: una persona a las puertas de algo. Y llevaba tanto tiempo siendo esa persona que dejar de serlo la asustaba. Esa persona había estado esperando Eso. Y Eso, por supuesto, era el amor. El amor consistía en poner tu personalidad en el escaparate para ver qué acababa atrayendo. Lo que atraía era un ser resplandeciente que caía del cielo y que, al instante, se enamoraba de ti por tu carácter. Que ese ser resplandeciente fuera Vincent Cardworthy era algo que a Misty le costaba bastante de creer, pero ahí lo tenía. Había caído del cielo y la quería por su carácter.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Holly le equilibraba la vida y se la hacía más agradable; pero despertaba en él una añoranza feroz, hasta cuando estaban en la misma habitación, como si él nunca pudiera saciarse. A veces le parecía un cristal de cuarzo grisáceo. Podías ver a través de él y también en su interior, y su perfección te dejaba boquiabierto. Buscabas información sobre él para saber cómo se había formado. Te lo llevabas a casa y lo guardabas como si fuera un tesoro. Se quedaba en el estante para que lo admiraran en todo su esplendor sin nunca, jamás, revelar el menor dato sobre sí mismo.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Her telephone voice was brisk and without any tone at all.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time

“Her work had been going so well and now it was all going to end.”
― Laurie Colwin, Happy All the Time