Gretchen Lowell Quotes

You're wrong, you know," Susan said. "She doesn't belong here. I'm against the death penalty. I don't think the state should be in the business of killing people. I think it's wrong. And it's hypocritical. Mostly, I just think it's mean. Gretchen Lowell ? She is the exception. She deserves to die. If we kill one person, one criminal in the history of the world, it should be her." Susan paused, reconsidering. "And Hitler. Her, and Hitler". Prescott had that shrink look on his face again, passive and unimpressed, and yet somehow judgmental at the same time. Susan continued. "She removed a detective's spleen without anesthesia. She stuck a wire through an old woman's eyeball and then threaded it behind her nose and out through the other eye socket and then she stuck the wire into an outlet."
Prescott raised an eyebrow. "And you're arguing that she's sane? ~ Chelsea Cain

The Truth the Dead Know


For my Mother, born March 1902, died March 1959
and my Father, born February 1900, died June 1959

Gone, I say and walk from church,
refusing the stiff procession to the grave,
letting the dead ride alone in the hearse.
It is June. I am tired of being brave.

We drive to the Cape. I cultivate
myself where the sun gutters from the sky,
where the sea swings in like an iron gate
and we touch. In another country people die.

My darling, the wind falls in like stones
from the whitehearted water and when we touch
we enter touch entirely. No one's alone.
Men kill for this, or for as much.

And what of the dead? They lie without shoes
in the stone boats. They are more like stone
than the sea would be if it stopped. They refuse
to be blessed, throat, eye and knucklebone.

Anne Sexton was a model who became a confessional poet, writing about intimate aspects of her life, after her doctor suggested that she take up poetry as a form of therapy. She studied under Robert Lowell at Boston University, where Sylvia Plath was one of her classmates. Sexton won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1967, but later committed suicide via carbon monoxide poisoning. Topics she covered in her poems included adultery, masturbation, menstruation, abortion, despair and suicide. ~ Anne Sexton

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. ~ Gretchen Rubin

wondered about what he said and then thought hard. I could
never be a dick, not to Gretchen anyway, so I guess I was doomed; doomed to go for this girl that
didn't go for me. But that was OK as I long as I did everything I could. ~ Joe Meno

I am just pitifully nostalgic. I can't help but roll my eyes at myself frequently. I mean, I still shoot black-and-white film. And I am constantly reminiscing about the 'good old days.' I'm 28 years old. There haven't even been that many 'good old days.' But still, I love to look back. ~ Chris Lowell

The world is absolutely out of control now and is not going to be saved by any reason or unreason. ~ Robert Lowell

My heart is tuned to sorrow, and the strings Vibrate most readily to minor chords, Searching and sad; my mind is stuffed with words Which voice the passion and the ache of things: Illusions beating with their baffled wings Against the walls of circumstance. ~ Amy Lowell

Life is constantly weighing us in very sensitive scales, and telling every one of us precisely what his real weight is to the last grain of dust. ~ James Russell Lowell

The Garden by Moonlight"

A black cat among roses,
Phlox, lilac-misted under a first-quarter moon,
The sweet smells of heliotrope and night-scented stock.
The garden is very still,
It is dazed with moonlight,
Contented with perfume,
Dreaming the opium dreams of its folded poppies.
Firefly lights open and vanish
High as the tip buds of the golden glow
Low as the sweet alyssum flowers at my feet.
Moon-shimmer on leaves and trellises,
Moon-spikes shafting through the snow ball bush.
Only the little faces of the ladies' delight are alert and staring,
Only the cat, padding between the roses,
Shakes a branch and breaks the chequered pattern
As water is broken by the falling of a leaf.
Then you come,
And you are quiet like the garden,
And white like the alyssum flowers,
And beautiful as the silent sparks of the fireflies.
Ah, Beloved, do you see those orange lilies?
They knew my mother,
But who belonging to me will they know
When I am gone. ~ Amy Lowell

I am interested in you, Gretchen." When I still won't look at him, he presses his fingers against my jaw and gently turns my face. He is looking straight in my eyes when he says, "I'm interested in you."
His midnight blues burn with an intensity that almost makes me believe him. Makes me want to believe him. He knows just the right thing to say to mess with my mind. He always has. He leans closer, watching me. His lips are a breath away from mine.
This time I'm not buying it.
My knee connects with his soft spot and he doubles over, gasping for air.
"Find your own way home," I snap before turning and marching back to my car. ~ Tera Lynn Childs

The brain can be easy to buy, but the heart never comes to market. ~ James Russell Lowell

We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage. ~ James Russell Lowell

I don't want to reject my life. I want to change my life without changing my life. ~ Gretchen Rubin

There's a Harvard man on the wrong side of every question. ~ Abbott Lawrence Lowell

Here come the hum the golden bees
Underneath full blossomed trees,
At once with glowing fruit and flowers crowned. ~ James Russell Lowell

I'm fearful when I push myself. It's a tough thing to do, but you need to acknowledge that you have what it takes to succeed. ~ Gretchen Bleiler

Fortune is the rod of the weak, and the staff of the brave. ~ James Russell Lowell

If I were asked what book is better than a cheap book, I should answer that there is one book better than a cheap book,-and that is a book honestly come by. ~ James Russell Lowell

Embrace good smells. No cost, no calories, no energy, no time - a quick hit of pleasure. ~ Gretchen Rubin

It is only by instigation of the wrongs of men that what we call the rights of men become turbulent and dangerous. ~ James Russell Lowell

And blessed are the horny hands of toil. ~ James Russell Lowell

Talent is that which is in a man's power; genius is that in whose power a man is. ~ James Russell Lowell

Before Man made us citizens, great Nature made us men. ~ James Russell Lowell

That pernicious sentiment, "Our country, right or wrong." ~ James Russell Lowell

One of the things that you see ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree on is that strong relationships are a key to happiness, maybe the key to happiness. People who have more strong relationships in their lives just feel happier. ~ Gretchen Rubin

Only the most hardy of living things survive renewal. ~ Elizabeth Lowell

You can have all the information you want in the world. If you don't have the people raising questions and looking beneath the surface, and people being paid to do this, you're not going to find the answers. ~ Lowell Bergman

It's so easy to wish that we'd made an effort in the past, so that we'd happily be enjoying the benefit now, but when now is the time when that effort must be made, as it always is, that prospect is much less inviting. ~ Gretchen Rubin

One thing I wish I could tell my younger self: take photos of everyday life, not special occasions; later, that's what will be interesting to you. ~ Gretchen Rubin

Few authors have captivated the American penchant for curiosity like Samuel Longhorne Clemens. Many have called his cantankerous alter ego, Mark Twain, the greatest American humorist-philosopher of his age-if not of all times. With his wry observations and forthright humor-unleashed in his particularly pithy paragraphs-Mark Twain became one of the most prolific satirists in American literature.
The New York Times editorial, reporting of his death on April 22, 1910, said. " He has been quoted in common conversation oftener, perhaps, than any of his fellow-countrymen, including Benjamin Franklin and Lincoln.
In 1909, Mark Twain is quoted as saying, " I came in with Haley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Haley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together."
His prediction was accurate-Mark Twain died of a heart attack on April 21, 1910, one day after the comet's closest approach to earth.
In Mark Twain's Guide to Audacious Sarcasm-volume 1,
Lowell Smith has assembled twenty of the classic cantankerous tales and wry observations of Mark Twain's celestial career. ~ Lowell Smith

A few miles away across the East River was the apartment he could never get used to, the job where he had nothing to do, the dozen or so people he knew slightly and cared about not at all: a fabric of existence as blank and seamless as the freshly plaster wall he passed. Soon his wife would return from New Jersey. Soon everyone would be back, and things would go on much as they had before. From the street outside came the sound of laughter and shouting, bottles breaking, voices droning in the warm air, and children playing far past their bedtime. It all meant nothing whatever to Lowell. Standing in the parlor of a house no longer his, listening to the voices of people whose lives were closed to him forever, contemplating a future much like his past, he realized that it was finally too late for him. Everything had gone wrong, and he had succeeded at nothing, and he was never going to have any kind of life at all. ~ L.J. Davis

If I can do something in less than one minute, I don't let myself procrastinate. I hang up my coat, put newspapers in the recycling, scan and toss a letter. Ever since I wrote about this rule in 'The Happiness Project,' I've been amazed by how many people have told me that it has made a huge difference in their lives. ~ Gretchen Rubin

Each week, I post a video about some 'Pigeon of Discontent' raised by a reader. Because, as much as we try to find the 'Bluebird of Happiness,' we're also plagued by those small but pesky 'Pigeons of Discontent.' ~ Gretchen Rubin

Say "no" only when it really matters. Wear a bright red shirt with bright orange shorts? Sure. Put water in the toy tea set? Okay. Sleep with your head at the foot of the bed? Fine. Samuel Johnson said, "All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle. ~ Gretchen Rubin

I've always loved 'Before and After' stories, in books, magazines, and TV shows. Whenever I read those words, I'm hooked. The thought of a transformation - any kind of transformation - thrills me. And that's the promise of habits. ~ Gretchen Rubin

Give warm greetings and farewells. I was surprised by how much this resolution changed the atmosphere of my home. ~ Gretchen Rubin

I myself am hell;
nobody's here ~ Robert Lowell

I who still pray at morning and at eve Thrice in my life perhaps have truly prayed, Thrice stirred below conscious self Have felt that perfect disenthrallment which is God. ~ James Russell Lowell

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, some new decision, offering each bloom or blight,
And the choice goes by forever twixt that darkness and that light. ~ James Russell Lowell

Such power there is in clear-eyed self-restraint. ~ James Russell Lowell