Mrs. Everything Quotes

“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.” —MEXICAN PROVERB”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“We lose ourselves,” she repeated, forming each word with care, “but we find our way back.” Wasn’t that the story of her life? Wasn’t that the story of Bethie’s? You make the wrong choices, you make mistakes, you disappear for a decade, you marry the wrong man. You get hurt. You lose sight of who you are, or of who you want to be, and then you remember, and if you’re lucky you have sisters or friends who remind you when you forget your best intentions. You come back to yourself, again and again. You try, and fail, and try again, and fail again.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“She wished she’d spent more time teaching her girls that women should forgive themselves, showing them how to take care of themselves with kindness. The world was hard enough, would beat them up enough without them adding to the pain.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“You're allowed to want to use your education. You're allowed to want to be more than a mother.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“There is a long time in me between knowing and telling.” —GRACE PALEY”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“Misses everything,” Lila said, and gave the faintest smile. “It’s like a joke. Like, there should be a Mister Everything somewhere.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“When your mom and I were your age, there weren't a lot of options for girls. Like, you know how your mother's always telling you that you can be anything you want to be when you grow up? That wasn't what we heard. Men could be doctors or lawyers. We were just supposed to marry them.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“Women had made progress - Jo only had to look as far as the television set to see it - but she wondered whether they would ever not try to have it all and do it all and do it all flawlessly. Would the day ever come when simply doing your best would be enough?”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“A girl named Jo once had a life / But that’s gone now; she’s only wife.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“If she married a man, she could let him plan, let him push, let him maneuver; and the world they inhabited would welcome them. They would always have a place. It would be easy, and Jo was so tired.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“Beauty was power, and Bethie wanted her power back.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“A body was just a body, just a vessel for her soul, and she was under no obligation to keep her body looking any certain way, no more than she was obliged to do anything just because it was customary, or traditional, or expected of women in America. She didn’t have to get married, she didn’t have to have kids, and she didn’t have to be thin.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“Would the day ever come when simply doing your best would be enough?”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“Bethie and Harold glowed, with success and contentedness, and with, Jo thought, a little meanly, the kind of well-rested good looks you could have only when you were childless.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“You don’t think she ever loved your dad?” Shelley shook her head. “I think, for her, it was more like taking a job than falling in love. If you’ve been bred to marry a rich man and have his babies and basically be decoration, and you have no skills and no idea how to support yourself, how many options do you really have?”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“Jo thought sometimes that Bethie liked to play at being a rebel, when the truth was that her sister had a genius for conformity, for making herself the best, most stylish example of whatever version of femininity was currently in fashion.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“You make the wrong choices, you make mistakes, you disappear for a decade, you marry the wrong man. You get hurt. You lose sight of who you are, or of who you want to be, and then you remember, and if you’re lucky you have sisters or friends who remind you when you forget your best intentions. You come back to yourself, again and again. You try, and fail, and try again, and fail again.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“She loved [her daughters]. More than that, she admired them. They would be better than she was: stronger and smarter, more capable and less afraid, and if the world displeased them, they would change it, cracking it open, reshaping it, instead of bending themselves to its demands.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“Just a regular gal, Jo thought, and smiled, thinking, If you only knew.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“sometimes—a lot of the time—it felt like her skin no longer fit her, and her body was only a collection of flaws to be fixed or at least disguised, an endless source of despair.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“I just feel so . . .” She shook her head. “Depleted. Like Arnold and the kids just take and take and take and there’s nothing left where I used to be.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“a lot of things taste as good as thin feels.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“all it took for evil to flourish was for good men to stand by and do nothing?”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“She just wants you to be able to be whoever you want to be, and love whoever you want to love.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“What fairy tale was it, Bethie wondered, where you could fly as long as you thought lovely thoughts, but as soon as you stopped you came crashing back to earth?”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“Please, God, or whoever’s up there, please just give me enough time to make it right.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“She wondered whether they would ever not try to have it all and do it all and do all of it flawlessly. Would the day ever come when simply doing your best would be enough?”

Wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, aunt, caretaker, career women: Mrs. Everything attempts to cover it all.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“My parents aren’t cruel to them. They pay them well. It’s more that they treat them like they’re pets.”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything

“You make the wrong choices, you make mistakes, you disappear for a decade, you marry the wrong man. You get hurt. You lose sight of who you are, or of who you want to be, and then you remember, and if you’re lucky you have sisters or friends who remind you when you forget your best intentions. You come back to yourself, again and again. You try, and fail, and try again, and fail again. She”
― Jennifer Weiner, Mrs. Everything