Once Upon a Time, There Was You Quotes

“I like to listen to sad music when I’m sad. It seems honest. It makes me cry, and sometimes a
good cry is the only thing that can make you feel better.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“People are stupid. Why are they so stupid? There is an algorithm for the way humans were designed: love and be loved. Follow it and
you’re happy. Fight against it and you’re not. It’s so simple, it’s hard to understand.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“You know, sometimes marriage is iron. Sometimes it’s tissue paper. And I
think the times it’s tissue paper are when you need to keep things to yourself. Or you can end up making a mistake that you’ll regret forever.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“Hey. Know what happened to me today?"
He sits back and crosses his arms, smiles. "No. What happened to you today?"
"Well, I decided to take the bus to work instead of driving? And I got on and I sat behind this woman who started crying. She was very quiet about it, just every now and then she would reach up and wipe away a tear. She had this kerchief on her head, this ratty old flowered kerchief, but it was clean and it was tied very neatly, you know. And she had her purse on her lap and she was holding on to it like it was hands. At first nobody else seemed to notice she was crying, but then everybody around her did. And it got very quiet. And then finally this man got up from the back of the bus, and he came up and sat next to her and put his arm around her, and he didn't say a word, but just stared straight ahead with his arm around her and she kept crying, but it was better now, you could tell, she kind of had a little smile even though she was still crying. And I don't know if he even knew her! I think everybody was wondering the same thing: Does he even know her? I guess he must have known her; otherwise she probably would have leaped up and started screaming or something, but you never know! You just never know, it might have been someone whose heart went out to her because she was crying. And he decided he would comfort her. And she let him. And I think it was a kind of miracle. A living parable or something.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“...what John likes best are the small and undramatic moments that make for a kind of easy comfort, for a feeling of being grounded in a
relationship.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“Whenever Sadie sees engagement rings, she feels a strange mix of emotions: a kind of excitement mixed
with a vague sadness. A longing for a speci??c kind of inclusion she both aspires to and fears. And, oddly, she feels a sense of failure, of
shame. She knows it’s nonsensical, but there it is, big inside her, this sense of having screwed everything up, of having lost something she
never had.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“I know you feel bad about it, but here’s what I want you to do. Create an imaginary box. Into that box I want you to put all the wrong things Isabel did to you. Put all those things in there, and put your hurt feelings about those things in there, too. And then put the box high up on an imaginary shelf. Just put it away. You don’t have to deny anything, but you don’t need to have it out, either. Just put it away, and maybe someday you can look at it again and see it another way. Most of all, remember this: You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s just the way things worked out between the two of you. For now.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“just think that we need to collect these joy berries wherever we find them”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“the palace of we,”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“Sometimes we make choices in our lives. Sometimes our lives make choices for us. I wish for you some harmony in spirit.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“How come you can’t give with both hands, Mom? How come you have to give with one and take away with the other?”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“Change the question, you know?”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“crust that’s shared is finer food / Than banquets served in solitude.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“feels that everything that just happened between them is a pretty illusion, a ride on a carousel. Here is his world: Sadie.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“I wanted to keep it as small as possible, so that it would go away sooner. I needed to keep it to myself.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“woman is most beautiful when she is herself. The Japanese call it a beauty with ‘inner implications.’ It’s not a show-off kind of thing, some peacock display of clothes and makeup and demeanor. It’s quiet. Subtle. And here’s the most interesting thing: Shibui relies on the ones looking at a person or an object to make something for themselves out”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“shibui?”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“A living parable”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“petechiae”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“multifarious”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“It’s like you let your mind stay in its pajamas”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“I'm just saying I think people are meant to be with people. You suffer in a marriage; but alone, you suffer more. Did you ever read that Mark Twain book "Extracts from Adam's Diary"? Adam thought Eve was a real pain in the ass, talking too much, looking at her reflection in the pond all the time, getting them expelled from Paradise, for Christ's sake! But what he said at the end was that he was better off living outside the Garden with Eve than inside it without her.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“You have so much love to give! But I feel like you’re all the time digging in the tomato bin, saying, ‘Where are the apples?’ ”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“You know I love you, but you are one of the most exasperating people I have ever met.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“You know who does it right? You know who does loving right?” “Who?” “Nobody. I mean, people can’t even … If you get a cat because you just loooove cats, you’re going to have plenty of days when you hate it because it’s acting like a cat. Do you know what I’m saying?”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“I made him ricotta pancakes with pecan syrup for breakfast. And he ate them, knowing he’d be dumping me right afterward. What kind of person does that?”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“There is an algorithm for the way humans were designed: love and be loved. Follow it and you’re happy. Fight against it and you’re not. It’s so simple, it’s hard to understand.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“He resents the very posture of people who are online, the way they bend their backs over their various devices, blocking out any possibility that they might engage with a real live person, who would never come with enough apps to satisfy them, let’s face it.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“Or he could go back to the ease of solitude. It's really not so bad, being alone, never worrying about what has to be done for, or with, or in the interest of another. it's like you let your mind stay in its pajamas all day.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You

“...she feels a strange mix of emotions: a kind of excitement mixed with a vague sadness. A longing for a specific kind of inclusion she both aspires to and fears. And, oddly, she feels a sense of failure, of shame. She knows its nonsensical, but there it is, big inside her, this sense of having screwed everything up, of having lost something she never had.”
― Elizabeth Berg, Once Upon a Time, There Was You