Lisa Genova Quotes

And I have no control over which yesterdays I keep and which ones get deleted. This disease will not be bargained with. I can't offer it the names of the US presidents in exchange for the names of my children. I can't give it the names of state capitals and keep the memories of my husband.
... My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. Some tomorrow soon, I'll forget that I stood before you and gave this speech. But just because I'll forget it some tomorrow doesn't mean that I didn't live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn't mean that today doesn't matter.

It's the kind of concerned, mixed-with-a-spoon-ful-of-horror-and-a-dollop-of-dread look that anyone might have if forced to sit next to any patient in the neuro unit.

Normal's overrated.

ALICE HAD BEEN UP ALONE for a couple of hours. In that early morning solitude, she drank green tea, read a little, and practiced yoga outside on the lawn. Posed in downward dog, she filled her lungs with the delicious morning ocean air and luxuriated in the strange, almost painful pleasure of the stretch in her hamstrings and glutes. Out of the corner of her eye, she observed her left triceps engaged in holding her body in this position. Solid, sculpted, beautiful. Her whole body looked strong and beautiful. She was in the best physical shape of her life. Good food plus daily exercise equaled the strength in her flexed triceps muscles, the flexibility in her hips, her strong calves, and easy breathing during a four-mile run.

She still loves the feel of a new book. While she appreciates the convenience of those thin, slick e-readers, they don't give her the three-dimensional sensory experience that comes with a real book.

You're so beautiful," said Alice. "I'm afraid of looking at you and not knowing who you are."
"I think that even if you don't know who I am someday, you'll still know that I love you."
"What if I see you, and I don't know that you're my daughter, and I don't know that you love me?"
"Then, I'll tell you that I do, and you'll believe me.

He left the room, unable to watch her standing there, naked with her underwear on her head, laughing at her own absurd madness.

My mother's cure for a lifetime of regret lies within the words I forgive you, spoken only by me. I intuitively know this, but some part of me, old and wounded and needing a miracle cure of its own, resists this generosity and won't allow the words to leave my head. And even then, before they can be spoken, they'd have to make the long journey from my head to my heart if they're to earn the sincerity they'd need to be effective.

How does he do it? Bob in Charge of All Three Kids is an entirely different show
than Sarah in Charge of All Three Kids. With Bob, they're happily willing to be independent little taskmasters, content to leave him in peace until he comes to them with an offer of a new activity. With me, I have all the magnetism of a favorite rock star without the bodyguards. They're on me. A typical example: Linus is under my feet, whining, begging to be picked up, while Lucy hollers, "Mom, I need help!" from another room, while Charlie asks me forty-seven hundred relentless questions about what happens to trash.

She wished that these kinds of advances in reproductive medicine had been available to her. But then the embryo that had developed into Anna would've been discarded.

They were more than colleagues. Triumphs of discovery, promotion, and publication were celebrated, but so were weddings and births and the accomplishments of their children and grandchildren. They traveled together to conferences all over the world, and many meetings were piggybacked with family vacations. And like in any family, it wasn't always good times and yummy cheesecake. They supported one another through slumps of negative data and grant rejection, through waves of crippling self-doubt, through illness and divorce.

Slide, turn, slide. I smile as we're snowboarding, knowing that Bob and the kids are hanging back to watch me, knowing that Bob is probably smiling, too. I'm at the top of Rabbit Lane instead of the summit, and I'm on a handicapped snowboard instead of skis, but nothing about this experience feels less than 100 percent, less than perfect. I'm on the mountain with my family. I'm here. Slide, turn, slide, Smile ...

Be creative, be useful, be practical, be generous and finish big

This might not be her biggest or most prestigious audience, but of all the talks she'd given in her life, she hoped this one would have the most powerful impact.

At some point, there would simply be no point.

Even then, more than a year earlier, there were neurons in her head, not far from her ears, that were being strangled to death, too quietly for her to hear them. Some would argue that things were going so insiduously wrong that the neurons themselves initiated events that would lead to their own destruction. Whether it was molecular murder or cellular suicide, they were unable to warn her of what was happening before they died.

They talked about her as if she weren't sitting in the wing chair, a few feet away. They talked about her, in front of her, as if she were deaf. They talked about her, in front of her, without including her, as if she had Alzheimer's disease.

She read it again. It was fascinating and surreal, like reading a diary that had been hers when she was a teenager, secret and heartfelt words written by a girl she only vaguely remembered. She wished she'd written more. Her words mad her feel sad and proud, powerful and relieved.

Her ability to use language, that thing that most separates humans from animals, was leaving her, and she was feeling less and less human as it departed. She's said a tearful good-bye to okay some time ago.

I smile, loving him for changing with me, for going where my Neglect has taken us, for getting the new me.

She could always walk somewhere without him. Of course this somewhere had to be somewhere "safe." She could walk to her office. But she didn't want to go to her office. She felt bored, ignored, and alienated in her office. She felt ridiculous there. She didn't belong there anymore. In all the expansive grandeur that was Harvard, there wasn't room there for a cognitive psychology professor with a broken cognitive psyche.

My yesterdays are disappearing, my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment.

The ability to attach guilt firmly by the hand to any positive emotion is a skill cultivated by the Irish,

Bob keeps insisting that I can do anything I put my mind to. But he's referring to my old mind. My new mind is broken and doesn't give a whack about the left or my old mind's reputation for success.

But reading her journals has helped her to remember more than that morning. There was more to Anthony's life than his death. And there was more to Anthony than his autism. So much more. She can think about Anthony now and not be consumed by autism or grief.

To me, meditation sounds a whole lot like doing nothing. I don't do nothing. I pack every second of every day with something that can get done.

Fenway seats just over thirty-seven thousand, about the same number of people as have Huntington's in the United States. Thirty-seven thousand. It's a faceless number,

If her mental prowess became increasingly replaced with mental illness,

Every breath is a risk. Love is why we breathe

She felt almost spellbound by him, as if he were a magnet pulling her to him.

You've had the power all along, girl. Go live your dreams.

On those days, I feel like a balloon blown to capacity, ready to burst.

Alice watched and listened and focused beyond the words the actress spoke. She saw her eyes become desperate, searching, pleading for truth. She saw them land softly and gratefully on it. Her voice felt at first tentative and scared. Slowly, and without getting louder, it grew more confident and then joyful, playing sometimes like a song. Her eyebrows and shoulders and hands softened and opened, asking for acceptance and offering forgiveness. Her voice and body created an energy that filled Alice and moved her to tears. She squeezed the beautiful baby in her lap and kissed his sweet-smelling head.
The actress stopped and came back into herself. She looked at Alice and waited.
"Okay, what do you feel?"
"I feel love. It's about love.

I miss myself."
"I miss you too, Ali, so much."
"I never planned to get like this."
"I know.

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Alice sat at her desk in their bedroom distracted by the sounds of John racing through each of the rooms on the first floor. She needed to finish her peer review of a paper submitted to the Journal of Cognitive Psychology before her flight, and she'd just read the same sentence three times without comprehending it. It was 7:30 according to their alarm clock, which she guessed was about ten minutes fast. She knew from the approximate time and the escalating volume of his racing that he was trying to leave, but he'd forgotten something and couldn't find it. She tapped her red pen on her bottom lip as she watched the digital numbers on the clock and listened for what she knew was coming.

She wished she had cancer instead. She'd trade Alzheimer's for cancer in a heartbeat. She felt ashamed for wishing this, and it was certainly a pointless bargaining, but she permitted herself the fantasy anyway. With cancer, she'd have something to fight. There was surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. There was the chance that she could win. Her family and the community at Harvard would rally behind her battle and consider it noble. And even if it defeated her in the end, she'd be able to look them knowingly in the eye and say good-bye before she left.

The thought is only terrifying if she chooses to be terrified. The quality of her experience depends entirely on the thoughts she chooses. Reality depends on what is paid attention to.

And while a bald head and a looped ribbon were seen as badges of courage and hope, her reluctant vocabulary and vanishing memories advertised mental instability and impending insanity. Those with cancer could expect to be supported by their community. Alice expected to be an outcast.

Prioritizing hurt, a reminder that the clock was ticking, that some things would be left undone.

Love is felt beyond words and touch. Love is energy.

Please don't look at our scarlet A's and write us off. Look us in the eye, talk directly to us. Don't panic or take it personally if we make mistakes, because we will. We will repeat ourselves, we will misplace things, and we will get lost. We will forget your name and what you said two minutes ago. We will also try our hardest to compensate for and overcome our cognitive losses.

Accepting the fact that she did indeed have Alzheimer's, that she could only bank on two unacceptably effective drugs available to treat it, and that she couldn't trade any of this in for some other, curable disease, what did she want? Assuming the in vitro procedure worked, she wanted to live to hold Anna's baby and know it was her grandchild. She wanted to see Lydia act in something she was proud of. She wanted to see Tom fall in love. She wanted one more sabbatical year with John. She wanted to read every book she could before she could no longer read.
She laughed a little, surprised at what she'd just revealed about herself. Nowhere in that list was anything about linguistics, teaching, or Harvard. She ate her last bite of cone. She wanted more sunny, seventy-degree days and ice-cream cones.

It's like you don't get that she's not gone yet, like you think her time left isn't meaningful anymore. You're acting like a selfish child.

Pushing aside the overwhelming fears of every horrible thing that will and might be, making room for every magnificent thing that is and might be.

I'm so sorry I have this. I can't stand the thought of how much worse this is going to get. I can't stand the thought of looking at you someday, and this face I love, and not knowing who you are."
She traced the outline of his jaw and chin and the creases of his sorely out of practice laugh lines with her hands. She wiped the sweat from his forehead and the tears from his eyes.
"I can barely breathe when I think about it. But we have to think about it. I don't know how much longer I have to know you. We need to talk about what's going to happen."
He tipped his glass back, swallowed until there was nothing left, and then sucked a little more from the ice. Then he looked at her with a scared and profound sorrow in his eyes that she'd never seen there before.
"I don't know if I can.

She almost thought she'd said the words aloud, but she hadn't. They remained trapped in her head, but not because they were barricaded by plaques and tangles. She just couldn't say them aloud

Time's a funny thing, bending, warping, stretching, and compressing, all depending on perspective.

This disease will not be bargained with. I can't offer it the names of the United States presidents in exchange for the names of my children. I can't give it the names of the state capitals and keep the memories of my husband.

Love isn't measured by the number of hours a person logs.

What she knew and understood, what she liked and disliked, how she felt and perceived; was also like a soap bubble, ever higher in the sky and more difficult to identify ..

Anyone could be seduced by research when the results poured in. The trick was to love it when the results weren't forthcoming, and the reasons why were elusive.

Reality depends on perspective, on what is paid attention to.

For a split second every morning, she forgets. And then the black heaviness is there, and she wonders what it is, and then she remembers.

This is why mothers have more babies. We forget about the pain and discomfort and wild inconvenience of pregnancy and childbirth so we can feel that heavenly feeling of holding a warm baby snuggled and content against our chests again. It's like nothing else in this world.

I can't stand the thought of looking at you someday, this face I love, and not knowing who you are.

Someday, scientists will discover a vaccine, a prophylactic, a cure, and people will talk about ALS the way they talk about polio. Parents will tell their children that people used to get something called ALS, and they died from it. It was a horrible disease that paralyzed its victims. Children will vaguely imagine the horror of it for a moment before skipping along to a sunnier topic, fleetingly grateful for a reality that will never include those three letters.

We both laugh. I like the sound of my mother's laugh. I wish she'd found these pills when I was a kid, that I wasn't learning the sound of my mother's laughter at the age of thirty-seven and at the price of a traumatic brain injury. I look over at her pillbox. It suddenly occurs to me that she took many more pills than should be prescribed solely for depression. What else could she be taking medication for? I wonder.

She was brought up strict Irish Catholic ... Protestants were evil, monstrous people and somehow probably contagious, and Katie grew up fearing them, praying to God she'd never see one.

Would he choose to stand with her on the plateau or push her down the hill?

The spectrum is long and wide, and we're all on it. Once you believe this, it becomes easy to see how we're all connected.
p306 Author's notes

Every note played is a life and death.

Lotus flowers blossom while rooted in mud, a reminder that beauty and grace can rise above something ugly.

I know what I'm looking for, my brain just can't get to it. It's like if you decided you wanted that glass of water, only your hand won't pick it up. You ask it nicely, you threaten it, but it just won't budge. You might finally get it to move, but then you grab the saltshaker instead, or you knock the glass and spill the water all over the table. Or by the time you get your hand to hold the glass and bring it to your lips, the itch in your throat has cleared, and you don't need a drink anymore. The moment of need has passed." "That sounds like torture, Mom." "It is." "I'm so sorry you have this." "Thanks.

It's our job to pass on our wisdom about life to our kids. I'm really afraid she's missing out on something essential. The exposure to different subjects, different ways of thinking, the challenges, opportunities, the people you meet.

SHE HAD NO CLASSES to teach, no grants to write, no new research to conduct, no conferences to attend, and no invited lectures to give. Ever again. She felt like the biggest part of her self, the part she'd praised and polished regularly on its mighty pedestal, had died. And the other smaller, less admired parts of her self wailed with self-pitying grief, wondering how they would matter at all without it. She

Later that night, feeling restless, I get out of bed, creep into Linus's room, and watch him sleeping in his crib. He's lying on his back, wearing blue feety pajamas, one arm up over his head. I listen to his deep-sleep exhales. Even years past those fragile newborn months, it still gives my maternal ears relief and peace to hear the sounds of my children breathing when they're asleep. His orange nukie is in his mouth, the silky edge of his favorite blanket is touching his cheek, and Bunny is lying limp across his chest. He's surrounded by every kind of baby security paraphernalia imaginable, and yet none of it protected him from what could have happened today.

Her parents' professional lives served as shining examples of what could be gained from setting lofty and individually unique goals and pursuing them with passion and hard work.

Her baby boy would play little league baseball, star in the school play and be good at math. She didn't know then that she should have had much simpler dreams for her beautiful son, that she should have looked upon her newborn baby boy and thought 'I hope you learn to talk and use the bathroom by the time you're seven.

A PLAN FOR HER FUTURE FORMS AS SHE LISTENS, DETERMINED THOUGHTS THAT SOUND PITCH PERFECT IN HER MIND'S EAR, A COMPOSITION OF NOTES SHE'S BEEN WANTING TO PLAY HER WHOLE LIFE

Oh God, my chin. I have a cluster of five hairs on the left side of my chin. They're coarse and wiry, like boar hair, and for the past couple of years, they've been my hideous secret and my sworn enemies. They sprout up every couple of days, and so I have to be vigilant. I keep my weapons - Revlon tweezers and a 10X magnifying mirror - at home, in my Sherpa bag, and in my desk drawer at work, so in theory, I can be anywhere, and if one of those evil little weeds pokes through the surface, I can yank it. I've been in meetings with CEOs, some of the most powerful men in the world, and could barely stay focused on what they were saying because I'd inadvertently touched my chin and become obsessed with the idea of destroying five microscopic hairs. I hate them, and I'm terrified of someone else noticing them before I do, but I have to admit, there is almost nothing more satisfying than pulling them out.I stroke my chin, expecting to feel my Little Pig beard, but touch only smooth skin. My leg feels like a farm animal, which suggests I haven't shaved in at least a week, but my chin is bare, which would put me in this bed for less than two days. My body hair isn't making any sense.

In the ladies' room, Alice studied her image in the mirror. The reflected older woman's face didn't quite match the picture that she had of herself in her mind's eye.

I have a son,' says JJ, marveling at the sound and truth of the words ...
'You know, I love you and Mom ... But I don't even know this baby and the love- ' JJ clears his throat and wipes his suddenly wet eyes with the back of his hand. 'It's bigger. I'd lie down in traffic for him right now. I didn't know it could get bigger.'
Joe nods. 'This is only the beginning.

I'd lose what little independence I still have. A new job. Your dad would be working all the time. I'd lose him, too.

Everything she did and love, everything she was, required language.

In excellent physical condition for a woman her age, she imagined running strong well into her sixties.

You can be in Downward Dog, hating every second of it. Or you can be in this pose, peaceful and nonreactive, breathing calmly. Either way, you're in this pose. You decide the quality of your experience. Be the thermostat, not the temperature.

And, like a lightning strike, there is his example. His mother before him. The lesson that she passed down for him to pass on to his children - the courage to face every breath with love and gratitude.

Whatever I have to do here, I'm ready for it. Work hard, do my homework, get an A, get back home to Bob and the kids, and back to work. Back to normal. I'm determined to recover 100 percent. One hundred percent has always been my goal in everything, unless extra credit is involved, and then I shoot higher. Thank God I'm a competitive, type A perfectionist. I'm convinced I'm going to be the best traumatic brain injury patient Baldwin has ever seen. But they won't be seeing me for very long because I also plan to recover faster than anyone here would predict. I wonder what the record is.

She pictured her Alzheimer's as a demon in her head, tearing a reckless and illogical path of destruction, ripping apart the wiring from "Lydia now" to "Lydia then

And she'd apologize for being so sensitive and moody lately. His warm hand on her hip brought her into the curve of his body. With his breath on her neck, she fell into a deep sleep, convinced that she was safe.

Concern is a thin hair on the head of pity.

She's so warm, and her deepened breathing is hypnotic. I wish I could let myself drift off with her, but I have miles to go before I can sleep. This is the trick every night, to leave after she's surrendered the fight to be up, but before I give in to the desire to close my eyes. When I'm convinced she's fully unconscious, I slide out from under the covers, tiptoe around all the toys and crafts (land mines) strewn on the floor, and steal out of her darkened room like I'm James Bond.

My yesterdays are disappearing, and my tomorrows are uncertain, so what do I live for? I live for each day. I live in the moment. Some tomorrow soon, I'll forget that I stood before you and gave this speech. But just because I'll forget it some tomorrow doesn't mean that I didn't live every second of it today. I will forget today, but that doesn't mean that today didn't matter.

Don't aim for perfect. Aim for complete. Perfection is an unattainable illusion.

As they lurch down the hallway and finally make it to the kitchen, it occurs to Joe that this is the best anyone can hope for in life. Someone you love to stagger through the hard times with.

But I am not what I say or what I do or what I remember. I am fundamentally more than that.

The blazing fire consumed all. No one got out alive. And

I miss my old paycheck and the sense of pride, power, and worth that it gave me. I make a lot less money now. A lot less. But what I've lost in dollars, I've gained in time. I have time in the afternoons now to help Charlie and Lucy with their homework, to play Wii with them, to watch Charlie's soccer games, to take a nap with Linus. I can't wait to spend afternoons snowboarding. I have time to paint a portrait of Lucy (my only child who will sit still long enough) or the apples we picked at the local orchard. I have time to read novels, to meditate, to watch the deer walk across the backyard, to have dinner every night with my family. Less money, more time. So far, the trade-off has been worth every penny.

She savored the relaxed intimacy of these morning walks with him, before the daily demands of their jobs and ambitions rendered them each stressed and exhausted.

She didn't have time for Alzheimer's today.

I decide I'm not dead because I can hear the sound of the rain hitting the roof of the car. I'm alive because I'm listening to the rain, and the rain becomes the hand of God strumming his fingers on the roof, deciding what to do.

Alice: I miss myself.
John: I miss you too, Ali, so much.

Lacking stamina, it became a withering whimsy of a flirtation.

He said not to worry. But it's there. The worry. I can't help it. It's like telling me not to have brown eyes. I have brown eyes. I'm worried.

As she waited for the applause to subside, she thought of the statistic that said people feared public speaking more than they feared death. She loved it. She enjoyed all of the concatenated moments of presenting in front of a listening audience - teaching, performing, telling a story, teeing up a heated debate. She also loved the adrenaline rush. The bigger the stakes, the more sophisticated or hostile the audience, the more the whole experience thrilled her.

I don't know how much longer I have to know you.

Have you lost your mind?"
"No," I say, insulted. Well, I actually have lost some of my right mind, but now's probably not the best time to be literal.

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She liked being reminded of butterflies. She remembered being six or seven and crying over the fates of the butterflies in her yard after learning that they lived for only a few days. Her mother had comforted her and told her not to be sad for the butterflies, that just because their lives were short didn't mean they were tragic. Watching them flying in the warm sun among the daisies in their garden, her mother had said to her, see, they have a beautiful life. Alice liked remembering that.