Did I Ever Tell You? Quotes

“Did I ever tell you” had become my five favorite words. They signaled that I was about to be transported, carried on the magic of someone else’s words, into the past.”
― Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You?

“Love is stronger than death. I will always be part of you.”
― Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You?

“But so often my mother had anticipated what I needed before I knew it myself.”
― Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You?

“So what really matters at the end? Being true to ourselves and each other. Loving and being loved. Kindness and compassion. Being remembered with pleasure. Leaving the least amount of harm and pain and suffering behind us that we can. What about our works, our accomplishments? I don’t know. I haven’t anything of importance to leave behind me of my own making. You two are the only true treasures I leave behind, and you are of your own making.”
― Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You?

“My greatest hope is that having known you were so loved as a child that you will be able to choose for your friends and companions people who love you for your own true self. That you will know how to give yourself a happier, kinder, more supportive and loving life than I knew how to give myself. Because I grew up with parents who did not know how to express their love for me, never having been given love themselves when they were children, I didn’t know how to give myself a loving, nurturing life as a grown-up. I pray that though I didn’t get to stay with you nearly long enough that somehow I have been able to help you feel so loved and valued in the time we had together that you will know that you are worthy to be loved and nurtured as an adult and that you, in turn, will be able to freely express your love and caring for others.”
― Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You?

“I felt I’d gotten the interaction all wrong. I wanted her to wake up and ask me the right questions. I would have told her that I knew she’d done the best she could, the best anyone could. I would have told her that I felt guilty every day about the hours I spent away from her, about the times I wanted to be away from her and the horrible, stupefying sadness that filled the room where she was slowly losing herself. I would have told her I felt guiltiest of all that part of me wanted this to finally be over, so I could begin to remember her the way she used to be, instead of the way she was now. But her eyes stayed closed.”
― Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You?

“myself.”
― Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You?

“What one cherishes isn’t about competence, or successfulness or physical attributes. It is about seeing our best self reflected in the other’s eyes; our most loving and sacred self—not their notion of what should be, but supporting what is already ours through the divine spark that gives us life—and that we hold the same concern for them.”
― Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You?

“It had been so much easier just to do what everyone else was doing than to consider another path.”
― Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You?

“Don’t be too quick to squander your passion on pleasing another’s notion of how you ought to be in order to be attractive to him. Girls are so quick to give themselves away in their longing to belong to someone. You belong to yourself first and foremost.”
― Genevieve Kingston, Did I Ever Tell You?