Labor Day Quotes

“She felt everything too deeply, it was like the world was too much for her.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“The real drug, I came to believe, was love.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“No, I said. I didn't remember that. There was so much to remember, sometimes the best thing was to forget.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“It’s like life: sometimes the littlest thing turns out to be the most important.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“If you act like something’s too hard, it will be, he said. You got to believe it’s possible.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“There was a way of looking at the world where practically every single thing that happened had some kind of double meaning.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“She was in love with love.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“A lot of your problem was in your head. You see yourself screwing up, it’s going to happen.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“Sex is a drug, Eleanor had told me. When sex enters into a situation, people lose all reason. They do things they would never do otherwise. These things they do may be crazy. May even be dangerous. May break their hearts, or someone else's... The real drug, I came to believe, was love.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“It's a great thing when a man knows how to dance, she said. When a man can dance, the world is his oyster."
Adele, Henry's Mother”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“What I have found is that a baby—though she doesn’t know words yet, or information, or the rules of life—is the most reliable judge of feelings. All a baby has with which to take in the world are her five senses. Hold her, sing to her, show her the night sky or a quivering leaf, or a bug. Those are the ways—the only ways—she learns about the world—whether it is a safe and loving place, or a harsh one. What she will register, at least, will be the fact that she is not alone. And it has been my experience that when you do this—slow down, pay attention, follow the simple instincts of love—a person is likely to respond favorably. It is generally true of babies, and most other people too, perhaps. Also dogs. Hamsters even. And people so damaged by life in the world that there might seem no hope for them, only there may be. So I talk to her. Sometimes we dance. When our daughter’s breathing is steady again—maybe she has fallen asleep, maybe not—we buckle her up in her car seat and continue north. I always know, whatever hour it may be when we pull down the long dirt road leading to their house, that the lights will be on, and the door will be open even before we reach it—my mother standing there, with Frank beside her. You brought the baby, she says.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“One thing he would tell me, though, he said, had to do with babies. Not that he was any kind of expert, but for a brief while, long ago, he had cared for his son, and that experience more than any other had taught him the importance of following your instincts. Tuning in to the situation with all your five senses, and your body, not your brain. A baby cries in the night, and you go to pick him up. Maybe he’s screaming so hard his face is the color of a radish, or he’s gasping for breath, he’s got himself so worked up. What are you going to do, take a book off the shelf, and read what some expert has to say?

You lay your hand against his skin and just rub his back. Blow into his ear. Press that baby up against your own skin and walk outside with him, where the night air will surround him, and moonlight fall on his face. Whistle, maybe. Dance. Hum. Pray.

Sometimes a cool breeze might be just what the doctor ordered. Sometimes a warm hand on the belly. Sometimes doing absolutely nothing is the best. You have to pay attention. Slow things way down. Tune out the rest of the world that really doesn’t matter. Feel what the moment calls for.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“sometimes the littlest thing turns out to be the most important.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“She felt everything so deeply, it was like the world was too much for her.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“My mother didn’t believe in germs but I did. Germs are something they made up to distract people from what they should really be worried about, she said. Germs are natural. It’s the things people do you have to worry about.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“No doubt Richard's father, like my mother, had once held his infant son in his arms, looked into the eyes of his child's mother, and believed they would move into the future together with love. The fact that they didn't was a weight each of us carried, as every child does, probably, whose parents no longer live under the same roof. Wherever it is you make your home, there is always this other place, this other person, calling to you. Come to me. Come back.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“...tragedy and death would follow a person whereever he went in life. There was no such thing as escape, except maybe the kind that Mr. Kirby had accomplished...”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“It was as if I'd been in the middle of a book that I had to put down when I got too tired to keep reading, or a video put on pause. I wanted to pick back up with the story and find out what happened to the characters, except that the characters were us.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“He himself did not eat. I had been hungry, but sitting there now, at the table with the two of them, it felt as crude to chew or swallow as it would have to munch on popcorn at a baby’s christening, or lick an ice-cream cone while your friend told you his dog died. I shouldn’t be here was how I felt.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“Some family's boat capsized at Lake Winnipesaukee the day before and now they were looking for the father's body.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“Ihre Schuhe - ihre Tanzschuhe - lagen unter dem Tisch, und ihre Haare wirkten feucht - vielleicht von Tanzen, vielleicht aber auch vom Leben.”
― Joyce Maynard, Der Duft des Sommers

“And the thought occurs to me that here is one of the best parts about his showing up. I am not responsible for making her happy anymore. That job can be his now. This leaves me free for other things. My own life, for instance.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“So long as we stayed inside this house, no one would know he was here. Not in the daytime, maybe, but at night anyway, nobody could get to us. We were like three people not so much inhabiting Earth as orbiting above it. Not that either, exactly. The configuration was two and one. They were like the two Apollo astronauts who moved together along the surface of the moon, while their trusty companion stayed behind in the space capsule, monitoring the controls and making sure things were all right. Somewhere far below, the citizens of Earth awaited their return. But for the moment, time was suspended, and not even atmosphere existed.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“arm”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“She was in love with love. She couldn't do anything part way. She felt everything so deeply it was like the world was too much for her. Anytime she'd hear a story about some kid who had cancer or an old man who's wife died or dog even it was like it happened to her. Like she was missing the outer layer of skin that allowed people to get through the day without bleeding all the time. The world got to be too much for her.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“were”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day

“Some family's boad capsized at Lake Winnipesaukee the day before and now they were looking for the father's body.”
― Joyce Maynard, Labor Day