Book Quotes

Since Whitney didn't have to go to school today because of Martin Luther King Jr. Day I had the glorious opportunity to lounge in the cozy reading Mrs. Mike (thanks Lara) until I finished it. I love being able to do that, even if it means starting my day at lunch time. I let Randy take the car today since me and the kids aren't going anywhere, so I'm feeling housebound and happy about it.


Here is my favorite quote from Mrs. Mike.

"These big things, these terrible things, are not the important ones. If they were, how could one go on living? No, it is the small, little things that make up a day, that bring fullness and happiness to a life. Your Sergeant coming home, a good dinner, your little Mary laughing, the smell of the woods--oh, so many things, you know them yourself." page 149

I haven't ever posted quotes (or my thoughts) from The Memory Keeper's Daughter, so I might as well include those in this book post. I really liked the book. I LOVED the first half of the book especially and just couldn't get enough of it. I thought the story was completely engrossing. The second half of the book was something of a let down, but I still liked seeing the progression (or lack thereof) of all the characters. I know some of my book club friends couldn't see why this one event had to destroy the characters' lives, but I didn't have a problem with that and was still into the story. I didn't love the ending, but I don't have an idea for a better one so it doesn't really matter. I think life is really like this. We set out on a certain course and depending on how we respond to the bumps along way our path can become set.

"For Caroline Gill was thirty-one, and she had been waiting a long time for her real life to begin. Not that she had ever put it that way to herself. But she had felt since childhood that her life would not be ordinary. A moment would come--she would know it when she saw it--and everything would change." page 25

"Two sets of friends had already come, one from her sewing circle and another from her china-painting club, filling the refrigerator with food, passing Paul from hand to hand like a trophy. Norah had done these same things for new mothers time and again, and now she was shocked to find she felt resentment rather than appreciation: the interruptions, the burden of thank-you notes, and she didn't care about the food; she didn't even want it."
page 45

"By every external measure he was a success, yet he was never filled, as he hoped to be, with a sense of pride and reassurance." page 148


"Away from the bright motion of the party, she carried her sadness like a dark stone clenched in her palm. He longed to comfort her, but he could think of nothing to say. He wished he had some kind of X-ray vision for the human heart: for Norah's and his own."
page 155

He'd kept this silence because his own secrets were darker, more hidden, and because he believed that his secrets had created hers." page 203

"She had been so young, so lonely and naive, that she imagined herself as some sort of vessel to be filled up with love. But it wasn't like that. The love was within her all the time, and its only renewal came from giving it away." page 247

"Nothing good had ever come to her from waiting." page 251

"Not the life she had once dreamed of, not a life her younger self would ever have imagined or desired, but the life she was living, with all its complexities. This was her life, built with care and attention, and it was good." page 254

"It was as if he'd taken pictures all these years since to try and give another moment similar substance, equal weight. He'd wanted to try and still the rushing world, the flow of events, but of course that had been impossible." page 258

"Paul's life smooth and easy, the fact remained that David had built that life on a lie. He had tried to protect his son from the things he himself had suffered as a child: poverty and worry and grief. Yet his very efforts had created losses David never anticipated. The lie had grown up between them like a rock, forcing them to grow oddly too, like trees twisting around a boulder." page 258

"He had given it up, art and craft, the intricate and exhausting task of trying to transform the world into something else, to turn the body into the world and the world into the body...You can't stop time," he said now. "You can't capture light. You can only turn your face up and let it rain down." page 319

"He realized with a deep sense of shame, that his pity for Phoebe, like his mother's assumption of her dependence, had been foolish and unnecessary. Phoebe liked herself and she liked her life; she was happy. All the striving he had done, all the competitions and awards, the long and futile struggle to both please himself and impress his father--placed next to Phoebe's life, all this seemed a little foolish too." page 390

One of my intentions for this year is to read more and watch less. This has been easy so far this year since all the good shows have been repeats. I love getting into bed after the kids go down for the night because then I can read uninterrupted for a long time and gradually fall asleep. That's one of my very favorite things in life. Up next: Cotton by Christopher Wilson.

**What are your thoughts on these books?
Do you mark quotes in your books?
What are you reading now?**