The Scent of Hours Quotes

“Mark had been a gift. His loss, at such a vulnerable time, had taught me early about the capriciousness of life, and the power of grief. But most of all, it had taught me to value the hours of life.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Scent of Hours

“Grief, recognition, a certainty that I had to learn to face up to my life just as it was, in all its messes and mistakes and losses, all its joys and surprises and delights. I had to face myself. First.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Scent of Hours

“Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself. —Ralph Waldo Emerson”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Scent of Hours

“As if someone kicked me, I doubled over and sank to the floor. It felt as if someone was slicing me open, from the base of my throat to my pubic bone, and I curled like a fetus in the middle of the plain white tile floor. I wanted the old life back. I didn’t want to be forty-something, trying to date and figure out where I fit in, starting over with new friends in a new life. I was lonely. I felt lost and frightened. It wasn’t an adventure, or at least not the sort I wanted, or had ever desired. I didn’t want hand-me-downs and insecurity or a new lover. I’d loved the old life! A lot. I loved being a mom, even a despised soccer mom. I liked bake sales and going to lunch in the middle of the week. I liked consulting with my friends about what to wear for a school function, or to a neighborhood Christmas party. The tears that had started in Niraj’s gentle arms spilled out of me. I lay there and sobbed, hard, for a long time. It wasn’t that I wanted to. I just couldn’t do anything else. I laid on the cool kitchen floor, and sobbed in purest, deepest, wildest grief. I had loved my husband and my marriage and being a mother, and absolutely hated that I’d lost it all.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Scent of Hours

“had driven me home and kissed me lightly before I got out of the car, but I felt his reserve. It made me want to cry, that I’d wrecked things with a guy who had genuine potential. But maybe I didn’t care about potential. Maybe it was just too hard to start over at this age, hard enough to keep myself together without adding a man into the mix. On the counter were the carnations he’d brought, and I bent my head into them, breathing in the”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Scent of Hours

“Women,” she said, “need to tell stories about what happens to them. That’s how we get it to make sense.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Scent of Hours

“I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take our fill of love until the morning. —Proverbs 7:17–18”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Scent of Hours

“Stop. The voice came from my gut. Just stop. Breathe. One step at a time.”
― Barbara O'Neal, The Scent of Hours