The Story of Arthur Truluv Quotes

“What is it that makes a family? Certainly no document does, no legal pronouncement or accident of birth. No, real families come from choices we make about who we want to be bound to, and the ties to such families live in our hearts.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“Actors, painters, dancers, comedians, even just ordinary people doing ordinary things, what are they without an audience of some sort? See, that's what I do. I am the audience. I am the witness, I am the great appreciator that's what I do and that's all I want to do. I worked for a lot of years. I did a lot of things for a lot of years. Now, here I am in the rocking chair, and I don't mind it, Lucille. I don't feel useless. I feel lucky.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“Everybody makes mistakes, sometimes even before we get up in the morning. We can’t help but make mistakes. The important thing is to keep trying. And to apologize when you need to.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“hiraeth, a Welsh word that means a homesickness for a home you cannot return to, or that maybe never was; it means nostalgia and yearning and grief for lost places.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“Oh, Arthur, no one even sees you when you get old except for people who knew you when you were young.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“People who don’t feel cared for are not always comfortable being cared for.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“Arthur thinks that, above all, aging means the abandonment of criticism and the taking on of compassionate acceptance.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“Oh. maybe little kids are trouble, sometimes, but only for a good reason: They are tired. They are hungry. They are afraid. He supposes a great many ills of adults might be cured by a nap or a good meal or a bit of timely reassurance. But adults complicate everything. They are by nature complicators. They learned to make things harder than they need to be and they learned to talk way too much.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“I'll love you forever in darkness and sun, I'll love you past when my whole sweet life is done.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“Sometimes I wonder what the world would sound like if everybody stopped their complaining. It sure would be a quiet place.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“Frank, saying, Who cares what happens before we’re born and after we die? The question is, what do we do in the meantime?”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“What girls do to each other is beyond description. No Chinese torture comes close.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“He tells her that, when Nola first died, he thought he’d die himself, of the sorrow. He says he’d read that grief has a catabolic effect and he thought for sure it would take him right out, this immense and gnawing pain, that it would eat him alive from the inside out. But it didn’t. It took a long time for him to shift things around so that he could still love and honor Nola but also love and honor life, but it happened. And it will happen to her.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“I think the kind of love that comes after romantic love is the best, richest love of all. At some point, I think we all want someone we can look ugly around, reveal our vulnerabilities to, and, most important, trust. And as a former nurse, I found that when people are at their most vulnerable, at their “ugliest,” is when they’re the most beautiful. In this novel, I think true love is saying, “I see you wholly and I love you anyway.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“See, that’s what I do. I am the audience. I am the witness. I am the great appreciator, that’s what I do and that’s all I want to do. I worked for a lot of years. I did a lot of things for a lot of years. Now, well, here I am in the rocking chair, and I don’t mind it, Lucille. I don’t feel useless. I feel lucky.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“No, love is never foolish. Or unnecessary”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“The one to tell. The one to be told by. For him, that was marriage.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“I miss you,” he says. “I still miss you, sweetheart. Every day is like the first day I lost you.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“And she finally told Nola that she was so worried about whether she could love two children, about whether she could make room in her heart for as much love as she felt for Bobby. Wasn't it betraying Bobby, to love another child? And Nola told her what her sister Patricia had said, after having her second. Patricia said she felt like she'd grown a second heart.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“aging means the abandonment of criticism and the taking on of compassionate acceptance.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“Everybody has thoughts that shame them. You can’t control them coming in. But you don’t have to let them all out.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“I don’t think it’s foolish. I don’t think love is ever foolish.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“sometimes he just can’t help but think that there really is a grand plan. In a way, it reminds him of square dancing, how you can see the pattern fully only by looking at it from above, by not being a part of it.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“Funny how an animal can hurt your feelings when you’re all alone.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“The important thing is to keep trying. And to apologize when you need to.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“But what we need are readers. Right? Where would writers be without readers? Who are they going to write for? And actors, what are they without an audience? Actors, painters, dancers, comedians, even just ordinary people doing ordinary things, what are they without an audience of some sort? “See, that’s what I do. I am the audience. I am the witness. I am the great appreciator,”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“He says, "Nola once told me she wished people could be stars in the sky and look down on those that they loved. I always wished that could be so. Let's you and I pretend it's true, even if it isn't, would that be okay with you?"
Madly nods, her throat tight.
"And after I die, why, you look up in the sky for two stars, real close together. That will be Nola and me. Those stars will be so close together, it'll look like they are one, but they'll be two. Me, and then just to my right, Nola. Look up at us sometimes."
"I will," Maddy says, "I promise. But you're not going anywhere yet.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“Hiraeth: a Welsh word that means a homesickness for a home you cannot return to, or maybe never was; it means nostalgia and yearning and grief for lost places.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“She goes back to bed, turns out the light, and can hear herself start to snore before she falls off into sleep. She doesn’t know why so many people hate snoring. She finds it soothing. White noise, with a ruffle.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv

“But losing weight for health reasons is a very dull prospect, doomed at the outset. Losing weight for romance, that’s altogether different.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Story of Arthur Truluv