Sweet Afternoons Quotes

“I want to keep her. Part of me just can’t bear the thought of giving her up. But most of me knows that I wouldn’t be doing the best thing for my baby if I kept her myself. And even though that’s not what I wanted, I know that sometimes I have to make hard decisions and not give myself what I want in order to do the best for somebody else.”
― Jessie Gussman, Sweet Afternoons

“But life’s not perfect. It’s messy. We make bad decisions, our bodies aren’t perfect, our skin’s not perfect, our houses aren’t perfect, and nothing is perfect. And we just have to live anyway. And be happy. Choose to be happy. And choose to make the best out of everything we have. I guess that’s a lesson that God needed to teach me. He taught me by the longing he gave me for a child and family and making me realize that I can’t wait until everything is perfect before I move forward. I have to just keep moving, choosing the best way that I can, and when I make a mistake, I don’t go back to square one and start again, I learn from it and keep on going.”
― Jessie Gussman, Sweet Afternoons

“God puts a fierce love in a mother’s heart. A fierce sense of protectiveness. An almost overwhelming desire to have the very best for her child. I think sometimes we go overboard and we almost become possessed with making sure that our kids get everything that they want, and we end up ruining them, because it’s good for children to suffer. It’s just hard for a mother to watch.”
― Jessie Gussman, Sweet Afternoons

“guess we all have a part like that, don’t we? That part that we’re working on, that we keep thinking is going to get better, and yet somehow we take a couple steps forward and look up only to find out we just walked in a circle.”
― Jessie Gussman, Sweet Afternoons

“she shut the door and turned around, her children were staring at her, and one of them said, “Mom? Why aren’t you as nice to Daddy as you are to that man? Do you love him better than Daddy?” Iva May shook her head. “That story has stuck with me through the years. I don’t want to be nicer to anyone than I am to the people living in my home. To the people who are close to me. To the people I work with every day. What’s the point in giving a good impression to strangers if the impression I give to my family and coworkers is that they’re less than a stranger and unimportant?”
― Jessie Gussman, Sweet Afternoons