The Resurrection of Joan Ashby Quotes

“Joan thinks then that writers have infinite choices and mothers nearly no choice at all.”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“All the ways in which women become mothers of some sort. Is motherhood inescapably entwined in female life, a story every woman ends up telling, whether or not she sought or desired that bond; her nourishment, her caretaking, her love, needed by someone standing before her, hands held out, heart demanding succor, commanding her not look away, but to dig deep, give of herself unstintingly, offer up everything she can?”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“... beware of finding yourself living an unintended life.”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“The middle seat holds an old woman, teeny, not much bigger than a doll. She is creased and wrinkled and rheumy-eyed. Her eyes, though, beneath their cloudy scrim, sparkle like emeralds. And she is bright. She is very bright. Her cheeks rouged a happy pink. Her sweater a hot pink, the vibrant color masking the heavy load on her sloped, thin shoulders.”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“She wonders when and how she decided it was sinful to heed her own destiny”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“I notice emotions the way others notice the weather”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“We were young, and some of us were beautiful, and others of us were brilliant, and a few of us were both. Citizenship demanded only an ability to create, to use our minds and hands and bodies in unforeseen ways. We believed we knew more than those who had tried before us. Their experiment had failed, but their hard. Passionate, arrogant, certain we would not falter, or deceive, or betray ourselves, that we would not blacken our lives with whitewashed expectations, our presence here, in this arcadia, proved we had slipped the ropes and chains of expected, normal life. We considered everything. Except everything. By its very nature, everything resists corralling; it is far too expansive. You think you’ve avoided every last trap, but what you hadn’t considered, what you never could plan for, it is that which trips you up.”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“In the stories Joan wrote when she was Daniel’s age, she had murdered her characters, while Daniel had his one character facing down dangers and searching for answers. The genesis of the stories was clear to her: because Daniel felt loved and safe within his family, he could imagine himself taking risks, venturing out onto figurative limbs. He was lucky, Joan thought. She had only felt loved and safe within the worlds she created.”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“Last words of wisdom. Whoever you were as a child, she's your future.”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“His life has taken no detours, has not been delayed at all, moved forwardd as he wanted, every step exactly as he arranged.”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“Her failure to demand her needs, losing all of her years, sacrificing herself on the altar of motherhood to a son who saved himself from eternal extinction, to a son whose desperation she had missed.”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“In the park, the bright colors of the children's clothing, the timbre of their young voices, lowered and darkened.”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby

“Critical to my understanding of myself was that my parents may have been storytellers, but I was the writer in my family, the only one who wrote his stories down.”
― Cherise Wolas, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby