In Pieces Quotes

“All of them with wounds that wouldn’t heal because no one acknowledged they were bleeding, and yet each of them needing the other to be near. And that—I realize—is how this story fits into my life. These generations of women, weaving a pattern into a lifelong garment, unconsciously handed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter to me.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“Carl Jung wrote, “Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“How can you change who you are and learn what it takes to get up, over and over, if you can’t allow yourself to feel how much it hurts to be knocked down?”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“Why it moves so fast now when it used to move so painfully slow. It has to do with the percentage of your life that each day represents. When you’ve lived 25,915 days, one twenty-four-hour span is a very small part of the whole picture. But when you’ve only got 10,220 days under your belt, each day is a bigger portion of that existence.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“What I do know is this: How you care for your child from the time they are born until they’re eighteen is important, but who you are as a person and parent for as long as you live also counts, and counts one hell of a lot.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves. —Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“You were magical.” I whispered back, “I was?” Then everything was dark again and I could barely see her at all. “What does that mean?” I asked. “Just that.” Another flash of headlights lit up the front seat and I could see her mouth edging toward a smile, the light bleaching her beautiful face white, then slowly fading to black.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“I drove back in the pouring rain, blurry and dazed buy knowing I had a father who cared enough to make sure my stools were soft. What the hell, it was better than nothing.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“As I look back right now, I realize that it was all of those mindless, repetitive tasks I was forced to endure day after day, the getting up and doing every scene the best I could, over and over, that gave me a kind of “miles in the saddle.” They strengthened muscles not located in my body but in my heart—muscles not easy to access and certainly not fun. But easy is overrated and fun is extremely relative.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“I had found someone to love, to pour my heart into, someone I felt frightened of, and I was seeking to be loved the only way I knew how: by disappearing.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“All of them with wounds that wouldn’t heal because no one acknowledged they were bleeding, and yet each of them needing the other to be near.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“Do you need the ones you love to let you go before you can leave?”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“Furious for every moment in my life that I’d felt dismissed,”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“The problem can’t be my mother’s fault because I can’t live without her, so it must be mine. My mother is already perfect, she has to be, and I am not. I can fix me. I can make myself better.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“A child instinctually knows that it cannot survive alone,” he told me a few days later, and I wanted to say, No shit. He continued, with a “be patient” look on his face, “But if their survival is dependent on someone who might be dangerous or deeply flawed, then the knowledge of that is too terrifying to accept, so the child creates a better scenario.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“to be excellent at anything, it must cost you something.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“Oh my,” I looked up into the face of Cary Grant. All I could say was “Oh God.” Without missing a beat, he said, “Oh God is right,” then gestured toward my bulging midsection, adding, “Does he know about this, Sister?”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“you can leave?”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“Most important, my mother was also given the chance to study acting with the brilliant Charles Laughton, eventually becoming a member of his acting company, the Charles Laughton Players, performing Chekhov and Shakespeare in a small theater on Beverly Boulevard, on the outskirts of Hollywood. Not only did she find herself onstage with Mr. Laughton, but she had the amazing good fortune to be directed by him as well. These moments stayed alive in her always.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“Exhaustion now came from the work, a glorious adrenaline-filled climb to catch some part of myself that I didn't know I knew.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“How you care for your child from the time they are born until they’re eighteen is important, but who you are as a person and parent for as long as you live also counts, and counts one hell of a lot.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“Without feeling blazing rage or fear or sadness, I had asked for what I wanted. Getting it seemed secondary.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“Because not only did Sister Bertrille fly, she also sang, something that didn’t come naturally to me—not that flying did.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“The only episode I can remember actually being about something was the one where Sister Bertrille had to deal with Irving, a lovesick pelican, explaining gently that while she was very fond of him, she was not ready to settle down yet.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“When lift plus thrust is greater than load plus drag, anything can fly” was the piece of scientific information that Sister Bertrille would repeat at the drop of a hat, though hopefully not her own.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“More than that was the bottom-line fact that I didn’t want to play a cutesy version of a Catholic nun, wearing nothing but beige with never a thought of sex or a flirt with madness, two things that seemed much more interesting.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“But I wasn't working regularly, and Steve had no career at all, so building a fantasy home at that particular moment couldn't have been a completely good idea either. Yet that's what Steve wanted to do: build a house. He was like a kid in a toy store, determined to get what he wanted. And no matter how many reasons I gave as to why we couldn't and shouldn't, he'd come back with reasons why we absolutely could and should: He would build half of it himself, be part of the construction crew, devote his life to it, stressing the point he knew all about finances and was positive it was a good investment. I wouldn't have known a good investment from a hole in the ground, plus I remained frightened of anything financial and therefore had no idea how much money we actually had. Part of me wanted to feel as if Steve knew what he was doing, that he could handle this part of our lives while I concerned myself with taking care of the kids and making a living. Which meant building a career, not a house.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“Burt”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“Then after the four-hundredth shove, with knees skinned and virginity compromised after slamming down on that damned "boys bar" again and again, I finally wobbled my way into the cycling world.”
― Sally Field, In Pieces

“and defensive and, most important, outraged. Furious for every moment in my life that I’d felt dismissed,”
― Sally Field, In Pieces