Lori Lansens Quotes

Funny how you can measure time by pets that were not even your own.

What is it about sadness that can be so fulfilling?

Write,' she said, 'as if you'll never be read. That way you'll be sure to tell the truth.

On the farm, in our first-floor bedroom, my sister and I were sheltered in the essence of normal. We were not hidden, but unseen. The orange farmhouse was our castle, our kingdom the fields around, and the shallow creek that bisected our property the sea we crossed to find adventure.

The strangest thing about strange things is that they're only strange when you hear about them or think about them later, but never when you're living them.

When I grew up, all of our news, weather, and sports came from America. The people where I grew up rooted for American teams as opposed to Canadian teams.

Art isn't a product. It's an experience

I would not have dreamed back then, could never have imagined, that one day I would be a childless mother too.

The final picture in the album was of Aunt Lovey and Uncle Stash, their black-and-white wedding photo. I hated that their picture came last, because it felt like they were saying goodbye.

Regrets serve their purpose. You'll see.

Evidence tells that black and Latina woman are more accepting of curves, and that's a good thing.

In some ways, Mary thought, Irma lived her whole life anxious to get things over with, as if she knew the end of her story all along, and didn't feel the middle pages worth the effort of a read.

Winning the lottery is winning the lottery. It's highly unlikely and very unusual.

Regrets. Sure you think about regrets, but it's not regret for the things you've done that occupy you, as much as it is a longing for the things you'll never have a chance to do.

I can't exactly say why I've chosen to write about the things that I am writing about. There are doubtless better stories from my life that I am missing, events and escapades I am not wise enough to know were important. If heaven is tolerant and writers are allowed (bunch of liars that they are), I wonder if they gather for coffee to ponder the prose they should have written instead.
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It was only out on the cold street ... that Riley began to feel the full loss of his father. Poppa, he thought, Oh Poppa. He'd grieved him since Christmas when he first took ill ... but it was here now, an empty place where once had been Poppa. A quietness to replace Poppa's good voice. A gust of wind that said he was there, not on earth, but in the air. Riley knew he would not be the same man again, for Riley had been Poppa's son and was now only his survivor.

Because I live in California now, I find my musings really being centered in this world.

When we talk about God, I think what most of us mean is some greater thing, some higher power that can help us access our own strength or give us strength.

Her changing perception of time had altered the sum of her reflections.

How could she have been so ungrateful? She envied the French singer who regretted nothing. She regretted all.

As I grew older, I found I could surrender my own comfort so effortlessly it didn't qualify as sacrifice.

Mary reached into her vinyl purse and extracted one of the novels, each of whose covers had promised laughter and tears. She began to read and, finding a masterful storyteller behind its pages, was instantly and gratefully transported to another place.

I felt the weight of my father's failures and the absence of my mother and I wondered who would teach me, or if a guy could learn on his own, what it means to be a man.

Aunt Lovey used to tell me that if I wanted to be a writer, I needed a writer's voice. 'Read,' she'd say, 'and if you have a writer's voice, one day it will shout out, 'I can do that too!

The climb speaks to our character, but the view, I think, to our souls

the only thing left to do is love

It's not that you like being sad, but you start to see the value of it. You don't judge sadness so harshly.

Resilience, thy name is Devine.

I was in the emergency room twice with heart palpitations and panic attacks. As one of my actor friends pointed out: your body doesn't know that you're making art. You think about struggle and challenge and you imagine yourself weighing 302 pounds and being restricted and in despair. Your body doesn't know that that's not the case.

I feel, holding books, accommodating their weight and breathing their dust, an abiding love. I trust them, in a way that I can't trust my computer, though I couldn't do without it. Books are matter. My books matter. What would I have done through these years without the library and all its lovely books?

When you get older you think of sadness in a different way. You don't judge it so harshly.

The beach was empty and dark but she couldn't hear her fear over the call of the surf.

If heaven is tolerant and writers are allowed (bunch of liars though they are), I wonder if they gather for coffee to ponder the prose they should have written instead.

I hum some secret place into being, thinking of this other me, the one that only I can see, a girl called She, who is not We, a girl who I will never be.

You're so dehydrated I can hear you blink.

There will be sway.

When you stand outside, you look around and find that the people you're with live on the fringes.

I have never looked into my sister's eyes. I have never bathed alone. I have never stood in the grass at night and raised my arms to the beguiling moon. I've never used an airplane bathroom. Or worn a hat. Or been kissed like that. I've never driven a car. Or slept through the night. Never a private talk. Or a solo walk. I've never climbed a tree. Or faded into a crowd. So many things I've never done, but oh, how I've been loved. And, if such things were to be, I'd live a thousand lives as me, to be loved so exponentially.

If you don't like something about yourself, change it. If you're OK with it, you gotta own it. There's nothing in between.

The most successful people in the most impossible situations are the ones that are sure they're gonna get out of it, and they go on thinking that, even if they die trying.

I was three inches taller but he could smell my fear.

How cruel it must be for a man to live past his soul.

Wake in bed and know, because dreams are not true, that the sun will be shining and it will not storm today.

I wonder if all women secretly fantasize, like me, about what it would be like to be an extraordinary beauty and bitchy as you wanna be.

Read it slow as you can. It's like a fine meal. You don't want to gulp it, but savor it so you can taste it in your memory when you're lone done.