The Summer Kitchen Quotes

“Stories are a little like mind places. You can do whatever you want with them. I want my stories to have happy endings, where nobody hurts anybody. There’s enough hard stuff in the real world.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“Families aren’t dictated by geography, or biology, or the chemistry of chromosomes and DNA. There is, in fact, no perfect science to it at all.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“I’ve done my research, Rob. I know this neighborhood. Economics, the rising cost of groceries, everything hits hard in a lower-income area like this. The community center had a summer feeding program, but the community center isn’t there anymore. The property was sold to a developer. New condos are going in just blocks away, but that doesn’t help the people who were there before. It only raises the tax base. They can’t afford to stay. They can’t afford to go. They can’t afford to live. Someone has to fill the gap.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“You’re not the powerless, scared little girl anymore, I told myself. Nobody’s going to whip you with a dowel rod and put you in your room. It’s time to grow a backbone.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“Sooner or later, you have to shed your family’s expectations and run the race on your own.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“Tightening my fingers, I held on. “Honey, the farther you go in life, the more you realize that most people aren’t trying to hurt anybody. They’re just trying to . . . get by. People don’t always make the right decisions—even the people we love. I know Jake loves us. He’s just trying to . . . find his way right now.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“It’s funny how when you think you’ve got problems, you usually don’t have to look far to find someone who’s in a lot worse shape.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“I tried to make sense of what she’d said. “A Sears house. . . . You know, I think this was a Sears Catalog house. I’d forgotten all about that, but I recall Aunt Ruth talking about Poppy ordering the house, and a railcar delivering it in pieces.” “Yes!” Hanna Beth smiled. “I remem”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“When I was little, I’d attended a neighborhood potluck there with Poppy and Aunt Ruth. There were tables full of casseroles, salads, and desserts. Was it possible that, now, just down the road, children were looking for food in trash cans?”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“They hunt for food in Dumpsters. . . . Hunt for food . . . I passed the apartment complex with the crumbling white stucco walls, looked over, watched the Dumpster go by, but the vision stayed with me. I pictured the children climbing among the broken bottles and Wal-Mart sacks full of soiled diapers. They weren’t playing. . . . The image was clear now—the little girl holding a wad of foil, the boy turning over a Hostess Cup Cakes box. . . .”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“Usually, the foreman found some reason to hold back some of Rusty’s check, because Rusty’d showed up a few minutes late, or broke some tool, or something. He knew Rusty couldn’t say anything about it, any more than all the illegals who worked down there could. Some folks just have to keep their heads down and take it, even if it’s not fair, because they don’t have anywhere else to go.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“I glanced at her, surprise obvious on my face before I hid it. No doubt she saw the question there, too. How does a teacher with a college education end up begging for rides at Wal-Mart? My”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“Stories provide a rare chance to temporarily suspend being in your own body, in your own life, and to slip into the very existence of another person.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen

“When addiction runs in your family, you can't take chances. You can't try it once to see what it's like. One time can be the beginning of something you can't stop.”
― Lisa Wingate, The Summer Kitchen