Joy for Beginners Quotes

“They said - Adults need to have fun so children will want to grow up.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“I think love is kind of like those waves out there," she said. "You ride one in to the beach, and it's the most amazing thing you've ever felt. But at some point the water goes back out; it has to. And maybe you're lucky-maybe you're both too busy to do anything drastic. Maybe you're good as friends, so you stay. And then something happens-maybe it's something as big as a baby, or as small as him unloading the dishwasher-and the wave comes back in again. And it does that, over and over. I just think sometimes people forget to wait.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“You know," Marion said, "I met a woman once when I was a teenager. I knew she had gone through a lot but she was so strong, so compassionate. I asked her how she could be the way she was, and you know what she told me?"

Hadley shook her head.

"She said, 'You can be broken, or broken open. That choice is yours.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“Irreversible decisions are good for the soul, word lady.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“Breath is life in”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“You're not traveling if you already know everything.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“When Marion had been a teenager, she wanted a tattoo. As an oldest child who did mostly what was expected of her, she had been fascinated by the abandon tattoos implied, the willing, blind leap into commitment.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“She quickly realized she had an affinity for the older books and their muted scents of past dinners and foreign countries, the tea and chocolate stains coloring the phrases. You could never be certain what you would find in a book that has spent time with someone else. As she has rifled through the pages looking for defects, she had discovered an entrance ticket to Giverny, a receipt for thirteen bottles of champagne, a to-do list that included, along with groceries and dry cleaning, the simple reminder, 'buy a gun.' Bits of life tucked like stowaways in between the chapters. Sometimes she couldn't decide which story she was most drawn to.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“i think love is like..waves.. you ride one in to the beach, and it's the most amazing thing you've ever felt. but at some point the water goes back out, it has to. and maybe you're lucky--maybe you're both too busy to do anything drastic. maybe you're good as friends, so you stay. and then something happens--maybe it's something as big as a baby, or as small as him unloading the dishwasher--and the wave comes back in again. and it does that, over and over. i just think sometimes people forget to wait.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“The cold reality of it had struck her, as if, perched on the crest of a roller coaster, the rest of the ride was suddenly, irreversibly clear. On the way up, the vista had been infinite, the time to look about sometimes agonizingly long; now there was only the certain and dispassionate knowledge that there was one set of rails on which to travel, the ending immutable and about to begin. It didn't matter that the rest of the trip might take twenty, even thirty years to complete; the angle of the ride had changed.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“The women ranged in age, but they were all old enough to know that in the currency of friendship, empathy is more valuable than accuracy.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“TIME WENT ON, life with the children unfolding in its own ecosystem, small plastic toys seeming to grow up from the carpet like mushrooms, clothes falling to the floor like autumn leaves. Every once in a while she would blaze through the house and clean everything--at which point, the process would start all over.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“She simply didn't have an interest in men anymore. It wasn't that she didn't like them, she just knew how easily they broke.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“I walked across a bridge that doesn't exist. And after that, being scared just didn't seem so important anymore.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“When Sean died she understood for the first time how completely human beings were dependent upon a suspension of disbelief in order to simply move forward through their days. If that suspension faltered, if you truly understood, even if only for a moment, that human beings were made of bones and blood that broke and sprayed with the slightest provocation, and that provocation was everywhere--in street curbs and dangling tree limbs, bicycles and pencils--well you would fly for the first nest in a tree, run flat-out for the first burrow you saw.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“There were moments in life, Marion thought, when you reached back, baton in hand, feeling the runner behind you. Felt the clasp of their fingers resonating through the wood, the release of your hand, which then flew forward, empty, into the space ahead of you.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“A risk is a risk because it's avoidable.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“She found herself wondering at what point in her life she had ceased to be Gulliver and had become the strings holding him to the ground.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“In the currency of friendship, empathy is more valuable than accuracy.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“...the day coming to her in small, liquid moments, sleep slipping into wakefulness like the slow merging of two steams.

p 125”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“You can be broken, or broken open. That choice is yours.

p 146
about dealing with the loss of her mother”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“... the results of the irrevocable decisions in her life, the commitments she had leaped into without thought, with only the sure and perfect knowledge that it mattered not where her feet landed because her heart was certain.

p 186”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“Caroline had felt more comfortable thinking of beauty as something separate from her, like a scarf or a coat you could check before going in to a show. She wondered now, however, if she had treated more things as a part of herself rather than an accessory, perhaps everything would have turned out differently.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“Jack's marketing books had been a part of her life for so long that she had ceased to register their presence, simply moving them from the couch to the coffee table, from the bed to the nightstand. How to Sell Everything to Anybody. Eight Great Habits of CEOs. They all seemed to involve numbers, as if you could simply count yourself to riches, like following sheep to sleep.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“Darling girl," Elaine said, "has anyone ever told you you need to grow down a little?”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“She didn't want to go home to New England, to her family who would think of her as the girl who had gotten on the plane, a girl she had grown past, like a train overtaking the cars on the highway, heading into mountains and valleys that her family had never seen, wouldn't recognize. (p25)”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“For years now, she had woken up like a runner leaping from the starting blocks - her body yanked into consciousness by a baby's wail, the sound of the puppy vomiting, the growl of the trash truck two doors away, their own trash cans still waiting to be put out on the curb. Sleep tossed over her shoulder as she sprinted down the hall, leaving dreams in a scattered trail behind her. (p125)”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“The cold reality of it had struck her, as if, perched on the crest of a roller coaster, the rest of the ride was suddenly, irreversibly clear. On the way up, the vista had been infinite, the time to look about sometimes agonizingly long; now there was only the certain and dispassionate knowledge that there was one set of rails on which to travel, the ending immutable and about to begin. It didn’t matter that the rest of the trip might take twenty, even thirty years to complete; the angle of the ride had changed.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“But then, as quickly as a simple breath in and out, the children had grown and gone, all the noises departing with them. The”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners

“What was considered odd in elementary and junior high school became an asset on the dating circuit later in life. Men always loved the hummingbirds, weightless and colorful, so quick you could never catch them even if you wanted to.”
― Erica Bauermeister, Joy for Beginners