Susan Meissner Quotes

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Fear is a heaviness you can't wriggle out from under. You must simply find the will to stand with it and start walking. Fear does not start to fade until you take the step that you think you can't take.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Fear is a heaviness you
That's what we did, didn't we, Audrey? We learned to be brave when it was easier to be afraid.
Susan Meissner Quotes: That's what we did, didn't
And what does war even accomplish? How does one country win over another by simply killing its people? None of it makes any sense.
Susan Meissner Quotes: And what does war even
People treat you differently when they think you are too young to know what you want.
Susan Meissner Quotes: People treat you differently when
I think this is the danger we face whenever time passes and those who have suffered recover from what flattened them. The generation coming up behind might underestimate or miss completely all that the older generation survived. Q.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I think this is the
Disease has no intent. It doesn't want anything. It has no malevolent desire to kill. If it could talk it would not say "I want to make you ill. I want to bring you to the brink of death. I want to kill." It would say only "I make people ill. I bring them to the brink of death. I can kill."

The disease is like machine that does what it does, but has no cognizance of self. When a machine stops working, it does not care, and it doesn't celebrate when it starts working again.

To those that have it, and to their loved ones, the disease seems heinous, deliberate,and personal. And of course I know why they feel this way... when you are in a fight for your life, then surely there is an adversary. There is something opposed to you. Something that desires to defeat you. You want to believe the enemy is the disease. You don't want to believe, even for a minute, that the enemy is your own body. This weak tent of flesh, that cannot stand up against a speck of contagion. This fragile weave of muscle, bone, and soul, that also cannot resist the power of flame, nor the pull of the ground below it.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Disease has no intent. It
We do not become different people as we age; we just add layers of experience onto who we already are.
Susan Meissner Quotes: We do not become different
Papa said marriage is not kept by affection but by a pledge. Affection does not beget the pledge; the pledge begets the affection. When you share a life and a home and a bed with someone, you become soul mates as surely as cream and effort produce butter ... And so I began to imagine my life with James Luddy. I imagined being butter.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Papa said marriage is not
I want to be walking down this street with Mama, headed where we're headed. But her hand in mine makes me feel like I'm not alone in this world where you can't always see what's in front of you.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I want to be walking
I no longer fear Death, though I know that I should. I'm strangely at peace with what I used to think of as my enemy. Living seems more the taskmaster of the two, doesn't it? Life is wonderful and beautiful but oh, how hard it can be. Dying, by contrast, is easy and simple, almost gentle. But who can I tell such a thing to? No one. I am troubled by how remarkable this feeling is.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I no longer fear Death,
...tired people don't give up. Tired people just take a rest. Rest a bit and try again.
Susan Meissner Quotes: ...tired people don't give up.
I want to learn how to look deep to see what people are really like. I want to be the kind of person who plunges past the surface and seeks to know the inner thoughts of the people I am around.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I want to learn how
I don't see how you can live in a black and white world without becoming ... uncreative. You can't make anything new. Everything already is what it is.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I don't see how you
Death doesn't ever look at shoulda, though, does it? Death looks at nothing. It just does what it's meant to do.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Death doesn't ever look at
What I hope readers will take away, is that a happy life is not made up of what you have dreamed of, chased after, and achieved, but rather whom you poured your life into, who poured their life into yours, and the difference you've made in the lives of others. Most of the dreams we pursue don't have intrinsic worth, but people always do.
Susan Meissner Quotes: What I hope readers will
There is just the simple truth that you must forgive yourself for only being able to make your own choices, and no one else's.
Susan Meissner Quotes: There is just the simple
I hope [Willa] still thinks butterflies are beautiful. I think they are. We shouldn't think for a moment that just because their lives are short they shouldn't be here.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I hope [Willa] still thinks
What you can still dream about is often sweeter than the reality.
Susan Meissner Quotes: What you can still dream
uncomplicated things
Susan Meissner Quotes: uncomplicated things
You want to fix what hurts the moment it starts hurting, but this time you're going to have to embrace the slowness of healing. You'll never be able to live with this part of your story until you realize you must make peace with what happened to you and your part in it. And that takes time.
Susan Meissner Quotes: You want to fix what
To her, there was only one shade to every color. She was happy with the one shade.
Susan Meissner Quotes: To her, there was only
We're not like God, [Papa] says. We can't know. We can't live like we do know or should have known.
Susan Meissner Quotes: We're not like God, [Papa]
My choices that terrible morning had been prompted by love. What others had chosen had been prompted by hate. The effects of our choices had spilled onto each other. They always did.
Susan Meissner Quotes: My choices that terrible morning
Love was both the softest edge and the sharpest edge of what made life real.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Love was both the softest
We understand what we want to understand.
Susan Meissner Quotes: We understand what we want
I used to think mercy meant showing kindness to someone who didn't deserve it, as if only the recipient defined the act. The girl in between has learned that mercy is defined by its giver. Our flaws are obvious, yet we are loved and able t love, if we choose, because there is that bit of the divine still smoldering in us.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I used to think mercy
Dissecting a book was the same as making sense of life. You have to find a way to interpret life, or you'll go nuts.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Dissecting a book was the
There is a calming aura at the ocean's edge, despite the frothing foam, crashing waves and roaring white noise. The ocean looks the same on your good days and your bad days. Nice to know on the worse of days that there are few things you can utterly count on. P. 107
Susan Meissner Quotes: There is a calming aura
You think you have a view of what's waiting for you just up the road, but then something happens, and you find out pretty quick you were looking at the wrong road.
Susan Meissner Quotes: You think you have a
If I had learned anything from this past year, it is that despair is love's fiercest enemy.
Susan Meissner Quotes: If I had learned anything
Life is wonderful and beautiful but oh, how hard it can be.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Life is wonderful and beautiful
Home isn't a safe place where everything stays the same; it's a place where you are safe and loved despite nothing staying the same.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Home isn't a safe place
But if I know anything about time, it is that it stretches to walk with you when you grieve. The rest of the world may zoom past at breakneck speed, but when you are learning to live with loss, time slows to the pace of your breathing.
Susan Meissner Quotes: But if I know anything
Fear is not only a leaden foe, but a liar as well. It was not as bad as I thought it would be, sitting there in a London department store on an ordinary Saturday.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Fear is not only a
When you only do what is expected of you, you never learn what you would've done had you chosen for yourself.
Susan Meissner Quotes: When you only do what
He's more than just the baby she found all those years ago. He's the proof that out of a great pile of ashes you can still find something that the fire didn't take.
Susan Meissner Quotes: He's more than just the
Change always happens... We adjust to it. Somehow we figure out a way. We straighten what we can or learn how to like something a little crooked. That's how it is. Something breaks, you fix it as best you can. There's always a way to make something better, even if it means sweeping up the broken pieces and starting all over. That's how we keep moving, keep breathing, keep opening our eyes every morning, even when the only thing we know for sure is that we're still alive.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Change always happens... We adjust
The frail letters on the first page were barely legible; they looked like whispers, if whispers had form.
Susan Meissner Quotes: The frail letters on the
You don't realize how small your world is when you are a child. Your parents are your east and west, your sun and moon.
Susan Meissner Quotes: You don't realize how small
Think of England as a very large book. The Cotswolds would be an unfussy chapter in the middle somewhere where there is lots of limestone and even more sheep.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Think of England as a
Then surely there is an adversary. There is something opposed to you. Something that desires to defeat you. You want to believe your enemy is the disease. You don't want to believe even for a minute that the enemy is your own body, this weak tent of flesh that cannot stand up against a speck of contagion, this fragile weave of muscle, bone, and soul that also cannot resist the power of flame nor the pull of the ground
Susan Meissner Quotes: Then surely there is an
Ah, but what is history? Is it a record of what happened or rather our interpretation of what happened?" "I think it's both," I answer. "It has to be both. What good is remembering an event if you don't remember how it made you feel. How it impacted others. How it made them feel. You would learn nothing and neither would anyone else.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Ah, but what is history?
He could not know that thoughts are not things you can give or not give. Thoughts are thrust upon you. You can only hope that thoughts that you don't want will tire of you at some point and flutter away.
Susan Meissner Quotes: He could not know that
A happy life is not made up of what you have dreamed of, chased after, and achieved, but rather whom you poured your life into, who poured their life into yours, and the difference you've made in the lives of others.
Susan Meissner Quotes: A happy life is not
I want you to know that love is not a person. It is not of this earth at all. It wasn't until now that I realized I had mistakenly come to believe that love came from a place inside me and therefore had to protect that place. It comes from heaven, Eleanor. It is given to us not to hold on to or hide from, but to give away.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I want you to know
my life seemed more fully layered because of the choices I had made, both consciously and in ignorance. I
Susan Meissner Quotes: my life seemed more fully
But life is lived at the moment you are living it, she thought. No one but God in heaven has the benefit of seeing beyond today.
Susan Meissner Quotes: But life is lived at
I don't know how to thank you.'

'You can help someone else down the road, when the time comes.'

Emmy fingered away wetness at her eyes. She knew she would remember that moment for the rest of her life, that moment when someone who barely knew her fulfilled every childhood wish she'd ever had to feel she mattered.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I don't know how to
Sometimes asking God for a reason for something is like asking Him why the sky is blue. There is a complex, scientific reason for it, Claire, but most children, including you, are content with knowing it is blue because it is. If we understood everything about everything, we would have no need for faith.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Sometimes asking God for a
It was only after time had passed that a person was able to see whether she might have been able to bear the load she was sure had been too heavy.
Susan Meissner Quotes: It was only after time
What's there to remember if not the good things?
Susan Meissner Quotes: What's there to remember if
We are born knowing how to be just. And we die knowing we spent a lifetime pretending we didn't.
Susan Meissner Quotes: We are born knowing how
Which one of them would make you the most sad if you had to live your life without him?
Susan Meissner Quotes: Which one of them would
Mr. Dabney could write to
Susan Meissner Quotes: Mr. Dabney could write to
Please don't let the unhappiness you knew in the past keep you from accepting happiness now.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Please don't let the unhappiness
There were a thousand words for dreams realized and only one common whimper for hopes interrupted.
Susan Meissner Quotes: There were a thousand words
I am saying, when you make a choice, even if it's a bad one, you've played your hand. You cannot live your life as though you still held all your cards.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I am saying, when you
... But you can't get back the day you make a decision that changes everything.
Susan Meissner Quotes: ... But you can't get
No one thinks much about their ability to breathe; they just do it. It's when a person can't breathe, that they suddenly realize they'd been doing something truly marvelous all along.
Susan Meissner Quotes: No one thinks much about
Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Love is not blind -
Into the main part of the store. Off to get Kendal, I mouthed to Celine, and she nodded. I stepped out into the September afternoon. Behind me, Eighty-ninth Street stretched several blocks to Riverside Park, a favorite place of mine and Kendal's. Just ahead the intersection at Broadway sparkled with a steady stream of cars and our neighboring retailers' windows. A man walking his dog nodded a wordless hello, and a mom with a baby in a stroller bent to pop a pacifier back into her unhappy child's mouth. A delivery truck double-parked and the car behind it honked its disproval. The air held only a hint that summer was waning. September used to be my favorite month. I liked the way it sweetly bade the summer pastels away and showered the Yard's shelves with auburn, mocha, and every shade of red. September brought in the serious quilters, those who loved spending
Susan Meissner Quotes: Into the main part of
I don't know very many people who can piece together eloquent prayers when their souls are wounded. Words don't come at those times, but tears do. I have always thought of my tears as prayers.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I don't know very many
Shut your eyes to the world of pain, and you also shut your eyes to the world of delight.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Shut your eyes to the
This is how it is for all of us. Life will send us across a bridge we did not want to cross, but when we finally open our eyes on the other side, we see that there had been nothing to fear at all.
Susan Meissner Quotes: This is how it is
We're going to be okay. Lainey isn't the glue that keeps us together. We are. We're the glue. Okay?
Susan Meissner Quotes: We're going to be okay.
As he mused on the possibilities he became aware of the odor of cigarette smoke. And the sound of muted sobs ... As she tried to stifle her anguish, what came out of her was utterly mournful, the saddest thing Luke had ever heard. He wanted to scramble out of the tree house, climb back into his room, and shut the window. But he was afraid to move. She would hear him.
So he just sat there, hearing the agony of thousands of failed days bleed out of Nell. He put his hands over his ears and closed his eyes. he didn't want to hear her sobbing, didn't want to acknowledge she felt pain - nor that he knew she'd lived through more pain than anyone else he'd ever known. That maybe she had sent Norah and Kieran away because she knew Eleanor's home had to be happier than hers. He didn't want to acknowledge that. He wouldn't be able to hate her then.
Susan Meissner Quotes: As he mused on the
A. I want my readers to remember a book of mine after they've turned the last page, partly so they will want to read more from me, but also because I want them to feel that reading it was well worth their time. I guess I want a book that I write to be more than entertainment that is enjoyable for the moment but forgettable as the months go by. I don't make a conscious effort to craft quotable prose when I write, but I do endeavor to pose questions and suggest insights that speak across the pages into a reader's life. For me, that translates into a good reason for having read the book. I always remember a book more fully and longer if I've been so emotionally tugged that I find myself highlighting phrases I don't want to forget. And I usually can't wait for that author's next book! Khaled Hosseini's books are always like that for me. Q.
Susan Meissner Quotes: A. I want my readers
When we trust someone, we believe what they tell us is true. We experience it as being true. It's not the experience itself that empowers us to believe it. It is the trust.
Susan Meissner Quotes: When we trust someone, we
Remembering what you want about the past, even if it's not entirely true, keeps you from giving up on the present.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Remembering what you want about
we play the cards we've been dealt - as Isabel in Secrets of a Charmed Life says - based on finite knowledge, and while being largely unaware that everyone around us is playing their own cards.
Susan Meissner Quotes: we play the cards we've
But heaven seems a place where truth cannot hurt. Here, the truth can be devastating.
Susan Meissner Quotes: But heaven seems a place
I guess our eyes don't change much from when we were young. Perhaps it's just how we see things that changes.
Susan Meissner Quotes: I guess our eyes don't
we, as a society, archive our history. We don't want to forget where we've been and what we've seen. The past informs us, and can easily transform us, if we choose to let it. Q.
Susan Meissner Quotes: we, as a society, archive
Everyone has a past, and everyone's past matters.
Susan Meissner Quotes: Everyone has a past, and
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