Mary Potter Kenyon Quotes

Can you remember another time when your chest felt like this?"
My fingers splayed across my aching chest as I carefully pondered her
question. Then I nodded vigorously as I remembered. Tears streamed down my cheeks unchecked as I whispered hoarsely, "Yes, I do remember.After my husband died, it hurt like this. My chest felt full and heavy, and I thought then, Oh, this is what it feels like to have your heart break. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

We put on a pot of tea, a necessity between these two writing friends. We
could no more imagine writing without this hot sustenance than we could
without pen and paper. We sat at the table to talk shop, sort through our
notes, and make plans for the book. Then we settled down in the sunroom,
giggling a little at the unexpected absurdity of our activity, editing
within arm's reach of each other, like toddlers at parallel play. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

The length of the friendship never brought astonishment. After all, the
majority of Baby Boomers could likely claim a long-standing friendship in their lives. No, it was always the letters: the-pen-on-paper, inside a-stamped-envelope, mailed-in-a-mailbox letter that was awe inspiring.
"You've been writing a letter every week for almost thirty years?"
The question always evokes disbelief, particularly since the dawn of the
Internet and email. We quickly correct the misconception.
"Well, at least one letter, but usually more. We write each other three or four letters a week. And we never wait for a return letter before beginning another."
Conservatively speaking, at just three letters a week since 1987, that
would equal 4,368 letters each, but we'd both agree that estimate is much
too low. We have, on occasion, written each other two letters in a single
day. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

Initially, after David's diagnosis, I would cringe when I read
books or articles by cancer survivors who stated that cancer had
been a gift in their lives. How could all that David endured be
viewed as a gift? The invasive surgery, the weeks of chemotherapy
and radiation: a gift?
Yet, after the cancer, David would often reach for my hand and
say, "If it is cancer that is responsible for our new relationship, then
it was all worth it." And I'd reluctantly agree that cancer had been a
gift in our lives. We'd both seen the other alternative: patients and
survivors who had become bitter and angry, and neither one of us
wanted to become that. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

Despite their inherent messiness, consumers aren't about to
give up on a mode of savings that is so much under their control.
Afer all, the price savings from a coupon is guaranteed to go
directly to the consumer using it. A coupon can allow a consumer
to purchase brand-name products at the same, or sometimes even
a lower price, than a store brand. And only the coupon-using consumer
obtains those benefits. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

That evening I sat across from Jeremy Bulloch and Jacob at the dinner table. I watched as Jeremy, who seemed to speak Jacob's silent language fluently, drummed his fingers up and down on the edge of the table, as if playing a piano. A delighted Jacob mimicked the actor's actions. My throat filled with tears. I met Ben's eyes across the table, where he sat straight with pride next to his son. He was enjoying the show just as much as I was. Jacob was in his element, interacting with an actor from his favorite movie. The other men at the table were part of the set: Mike, the owner of the comic book store, who had made the entire thing possible, and the Mandalorin Mercs, new friends of the little boy who had
become one of their own, a comrade in distress. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

Later, as I attempted to lean over the high sides of the hospital
bed to kiss David, I couldn't reach either his forehead or his lips, so
I began kissing the length of his arm.
"I love you," I told him before I was ready to leave for the night.
His beautiful brown eyes locked with mine.
"Thank you," he replied simply, grabbing hold of my hand with
his. I brought it to my lips in response.
Thank you, as if my love were a great gift to him, when all along
his love was the gift to me. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

What's wrong?" he asked, and I motioned for him to take a seat.
He listened quietly as I explained what had happened. By the time
I told him the whole sordid story, my heart was hammering in my
chest and I couldn't meet his eyes. Was he angry? Would he lash
out at me like he used to? David reached across the table and gently
took my hand in his. I looked up and saw only tenderness and love
in his expression.
"What can I do to help?" he asked, and I burst into tears. David
had become my true partner in life. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

I started taking walks
with my children on trash day just to collect the extra proofs of
purchase. We'd roam the alleys together, stopping at each diaper
box. I learned to swiftly tear the proof of purchase off in a stealth
maneuver I'd refined with practice: pushing the stroller up close
to the box, bending down as if tying my shoe, and ripping off the
qualifier, all in less than thirty seconds. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

The whole encounter was surreal. No one had mentioned cancer. I hadn't requested special treatment for Jacob. Yet he'd just nabbed a private meeting with an actor from his favorite movie. I would later ask Mike, the comic book store owner, what had prompted him to invite Jacob to the supper and a private meeting with Mr. Bulloch.
It was Jeremy at the door. He recognized something in Jacob. Jeremy
is a cancer survivor. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

For thirty-two years I went shopping with my coupon box in tow
without ever seeing another consumer with either a coupon box or
binder. Not once. I spotted small coupon wallets that fit in a purse
or envelopes of coupons, but never a box or binder. By early 2011,
I was beginning to see women with coupon binders everywhere I
went. All of a sudden, couponing was hot. It was as if couponing
was a totally new concept, and yet coupons had been around for
over 125 years. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

That's what our life is like: little bits and broken pieces…Picture your life as a mixed media collage. Whatever you add to the collage from this point forward is up to you. You can keep moving those broken parts around. You can add similar pieces…But God might have something more for you. God's plans for you are so much bigger than what you can ever imagine for yourself. He can use you in so many ways if you let him. You can grow in him and share in the masterpiece he wants to make of your life's collage. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

Whether it means producing a piece of art, writing a short story, or simply bringing beauty into our home or into the lives of others, consider for a moment that we each have the capacity to be creative. The masterpiece, then, is not something we create to hang on our wall but something in ourselves as we fulfill our God-given potential, utilizing the talents He gave us. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

I often wondered after David's death: Had they known something then? Did their very souls recognize each other? Did Jacob, closer to God than anyone else I knew, somehow sense this was the last time he would see his grandpa? Had
there been a message to the little boy in David's long-held gaze? Did these two people - the six-year-old boy and the sixty-year-old man - realize something the rest of us didn't? ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

Compulsive? I lived and breathed refunding, and my children
benefited with their wide variety of toys, balls, and T-shirts
I obtained through my hobby. It was all a big game, and one that
I played well. And I was not alone. While there was no estimate
available on the number of people who were involved in refunding,
Carol Backs, publisher of Money Maker magazine in the
late 1980s and chairman of a trade association of refund magazine
publishers, claimed that refund magazines were selling eight
hundred thousand to one million subscriptions. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

What were you going to make for Christmas dinner?" one of my
older children asked in a very reasonable tone. I cleared my throat,
but couldn't speak. There was no real explanation for my behavior. I'd been so intent on getting through this first Christmas without David. I'd found new rituals to replace the old, wrapped gifts, and even made cutout sugar cookies. I'd modified Christmas in order to endure it. What I hadn't done was plan on or prepare a Christmas meal. Everyone was looking at me expectantly by this point, including my sweet, hungry grandchildren.
"I forgot all about Christmas dinner," I finally admitted. No one batted an eye. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

Tonight I attend my thirty-fifth high school reunion with some trepidation.
I have not seen most of these former classmates for thirty-some years. I am not the same young girl they knew in high school. What they cannot know, what I am just realizing myself, is that I am not even the same person I was two years ago. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

In the midst of the darkness of loss, I found light. Admittedly, in those first weeks, it might have been but a single small spark I sensed deep inside of me, but that spark guided me in the twisted, dark journey of grief. As I stumbled over the roots of hopelessness and despair, that light grew to illuminate my path, a path I sometimes felt very alone on. At some point in the journey I'd turned around, and there was God.
That is grace. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

Why had I failed to realize the depth of Mary's faith despite all those
letters? She'd certainly done her best to share it. The answer came to me in
the midst of my own faith journey, one that seemed to begin the night my
mother died and was jump-started when I lost David seventeen months later.
Why hadn't I seen it?
Simple. I wasn't looking.
According to Jeremiah 29:13 in the Bible, "You will seek me and find
me when you seek me with all your heart" (NIV). It wasn't about Mary at all. It was about me. It wasn't until my mother's death that I began actively
seeking God. I didn't see Mary's Christian example because I hadn't yet
developed spiritually. I wasn't "there" yet. I didn't recognize true faith
because I didn't have my own. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

We continued talking as my purchases were rung up - about the first
Christmas, the sadness of ending up in a cemetery on a holiday, and the
pain of getting through that first year.
"They tell me it gets better," she said with a sigh.
"Can I give you a hug?" I asked shyly before I turned to go. She nodded eagerly, and one small sob escaped her as I squeezed her shoulders tightly.
I might look back on that first Christmas and remember it as the year
I did so many things so badly, the year I forgot to feed my family.
Or I might just remember it as the Christmas I learned what it meant to reach out to a hurting stranger. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

I was not above filching empty candy bar wrappers from
trash bins at the park or picking up the back cards of batteries from
store parking lots. My children all sported Hershey shirts but ate
very few of the required candy bars themselves to get them. Trips
to the pool were the most rewarding, where candy was sold at the
concession stand and the trash receptacles were overflowing with
wrappers. On neighborhood trash day, the children and I walked
up and down the alleys, where we confiscated extra Pampers points
to send in for savings bonds and toys. Even the tennis shoes my
children wore on these jaunts were obtained free from the Huggies
diaper company. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

Don't you believe that Jacob can be healed? some persisted, pressuring
Elizabeth to believe - just believe - and Jacob would be healed. The
underlying message was that Elizabeth's faith was not strong enough to save her son. I remembered then the same kind of statements David and I had heard when he was undergoing cancer treatment, when several well-intentioned people informed David that all he had to do to rid his body of cancer was to believe he was healed. I'd resented the implications then, and I resented them for my daughter now. People die. Good
people like David die too young, and innocent little children die, and the
strongest faith in the world cannot keep anyone on this earth forever. If
only the same Christians professing their faith in healing could clearly
see the flip side of that faith, that earth was not where we ultimately belonged.
If Jacob died, he would be going Home. ~ Mary Potter Kenyon

In creating the Harry Potter artwork, I try to bring a certain amount of realism and believability to the characters and setting, but still add an element of wonder and the unknown. ~ Mary Grandpre

Nobody hopped into a wardrobe to find Narnia; they hopped in, thinking it was just a wardrobe. They didn't climb up the Faraway Tree, knowing it was a Faraway Tree; they thought it was just a really big tree. Harry Potter thought he was a normal boy; Mary Poppins was supposed to be a regular nanny. It's the first and only rule. Magic comes when you're not looking for it. ~ Holly Smale

Don't talk so, Lysis. I'm sure you kept your head much better than I did." He smiled, and quoted a certain phrase, recalling a personal matter between us. Then he said, "Am I getting old, to find myself always thinking, 'Last year was better'?"-"Sometimes it seems to me, Lysis, that nothing has been the same since the Games."-"We think so, my dear, because that was our concern. If you asked that potter over there, or that old soldier, or Kallippides the actor, each would name his own Isthmia, I daresay ... It has been a long war, Alexias. Twenty-four years now. Even Troy was only ten. ~ Mary Renault

Meanwhile, as we read, two little girls slept as if couched on zephyrs on the south side of the parlor floor, in a room that had bunny wallpaper ... and a bookcase crammed with the collected Beatrix Potter. Snow White was in a youth bed and Rose Red was in a crib, and next to them was the little blue and white guest room that one of them would have one day. Because I recognize emotions only in retrospect, I didn't know that I was happy. As always, there was something nagging at my mind's corners. But I did know that I had all that it is proper in this world to wish for. ~ Mary Cantwell

The day that I can no longer receive Our Lord in Holy Communion, Our Lord Himself will come to take me. ~ Mary Potter

A lot of times, when I go back to books I loved when I was young, I don't quite understand what it was that I loved about them. Rereading 'The Secret Garden,' I felt a lot like Mary feels when she visits her garden. ~ Ellen Potter

When I was praying there was a Presence - I saw nothing and yet Our Lord Crucified seemed present for a few instants. ~ Mary Potter

Show so clearly that this matter is God's work, not mine. ~ Mary Potter

Since the day he was born, he'd been defying the odds. Today was not the day to stop that trend. Unlike Ambrose, he wasn't about to give up or give in.
So long as there was breath in his body, there was life. So long as there was life, there was hope. And so long as there was hope, there was the possibility of victory.
Life wasn't about just getting by. It was about getting through, no matter what, and making the most of every minute.
A chill went down his spine as he remembered what his father had said to him. <>.
Nick Gautier would not be remembered as a coward or a villain. He was going out a hero and a champion.
And he would not go down without a vicious, vicious fight. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

We dedicated ourselves to a powerful idea - organic law rather than naked power. There seems to be universal acceptance of that idea in the nation. ~ Potter Stewart

Why can't a democrat get fired up about protecting the environment and enacting gun control legislation just as right wing republicans get fired up about making sure that children have access to assault weapons and banning 'the catcher in the rye' and 'harry potter'? ~ Moby

Money is a cheap but powerful substitute for Jesus, and wielding money is intoxicating, but it won't usher in the kingdom of God, nor will it ensure eternal treasures. ~ Mary E. DeMuth

I've been around a lot of wraiths, and he doesn't feel like that either, though. It's a strange sensation. Like human wrapped in evil." – Caleb
"Oh, great. Our coach is a pig-in-the-blanket for Satan." – Nick ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Pretty sure it was me." Simi grinned. "The Simi has that effect or is it affect on people? Affect. Effect. What is this difference between those two words and really, does it matter? Some people get so testy when you misuse a word. But I likes doing it. Language should be fun and so long as people know what you mean, what difference does it make? Really. Really. Really. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

And the more I live, the more I dread death, even while I abhor life. Such an enigma is man -- born to perish -- when he wars, as I do, against the established laws of his nature. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Philanthropy is loving, and ameliorative, revolutionary; it wakens lofty desires, new possibilities, achievements, and energies; ... it touches thought to spiritual issues, systematizes action, and insures success. ~ Mary Baker Eddy

What was Dionysus going to go? Send him back to his hellish isolation? He'd been there, done that, and had the Ozzy T-shirt to prove it.' (Styxx) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Nearly all monster stories depend for their success on Jack killing the Giant, Beowulf or St. George slaying the Dragon, Harry Potter triumphing over the basilisk. That is their inner grammar, and the whole shape of the story leads towards it. ~ A. N. Wilson

Hermione slid out of her bunk and moved like a sleepwalker towards Ron, her eyes upon his pale face. She stopped right in front of him, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide. Ron gave a weak, hopeful smile and half-raised his arms.
Hermione launched herself forwards and started punching every inch of him that she could reach.
'Ouch - ow - gerroff! What the - ? Hermione - OW!'
"You - complete - arse - Ronald - Weasley!"
She punctuated every word with a blow: Ron backed away, shielding his head as Hermione advanced.
"You - crawl - back - here - after - weeks - and - weeks - oh, where's my wand?"
She looked as though ready to wrestle it out of Harry's hands and he reacted instinctively.
"Protego! ~ J.K. Rowling

Believe me, I will never desert life until this last hope is torn from my bosom, that in some way my labours may form a link of gold with which we ought all to strive to drag Happiness from where she sits enthroned above the clouds, now far beyond our reach, to inhabit the earth with us. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

If it's to be; it's up to me ~ Mary Crowley

Why did you leave? (Aiden)
I took care of the person harassing him. Threat gone. Job eliminated. Anything else you want to know? Dental records, fingerprints? Retinal scan? (Leta)
Urine sample would work. (Aiden)
What cup you want me to use? (Leta)
Does anything faze you? (Aiden)
I fight people for a living. Do you honestly think peeing in a cup is going to frighten me? (Leta) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

Mary Sibley: So, love is to a woman what war is to a man: the most deadly thing they'll do. Only a fool runs quickly to war or love. ~ Salem

Actually, the Burmese don't refer to her by name. They just call her "The Lady." It's like Voldemort in Harry Potter, "He Who Must Not Be Named. ~ Guy Delisle

The changing climate is a threat to human rights. ~ Mary Robinson

He was like a fine olive tree, which when its roots are checked one way will put them out another. Summer or winter, storm or calm, his soul sought justice and the end of wrong. ~ Mary Renault

It's a yes then? (Arik)
No. I thought I'd walk through hell to reclaim you and carry your baby just for the heck of it. Who needs marriage. (Geary)
I do! (Arik)
Good. I can let you live another day. (Geary) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

If there is any irreverence in my own work, I hope it is the irreverence I bear in mistrusting my own sincere self, which then sincerely mistrusts the irreverent me. If there is a bottom to this, I think it is a life's work. ~ Mary Ruefle

I look upon time as no more than an idea, and I consider eternity as another possibility ~ Mary Oliver

But he holds me so tightly that for a moment, the emotions are at bay. The sadness and fear, the regret and the loathing. He bottles them up inside his arms so that for a split second I don't have to be the one carrying the weight of them. For this moment, the burden is his. ~ Mary Kubica

There were Arcadians here, Katagaria, Dark-Hunters, demons, humans, and who knew what else. By rights none of them should get along and yet they were together tonight. Bound by something other than blood. They were bound together by their hearts.' (Gallagher) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

But I feel its beauty here and I know there is not a lovelier, more precious child in this world than you and your cousins. I am glad that though someone did me grossly wrong, my final mark on this world is not one of countering hurt with more hurt but is one of love and friendship. We will always be known by our actions. Let them always be good ones. (Theo, Geary's Grandfather) ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

I understand true life doesn't happen when I constantly gaze backwards, mulling over all the injustices others have done or I have done to others. ~ Mary E. DeMuth

Akri won't let me eat any of them nasty gods. What's the world coming to when a demon gots to beg for tidbits ... not eve a finger sandwich or a single knuckle. Tragic. Terribly tragic. ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

The most perfect education ... is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it independent. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft

If you truly dwell within Acceptance, you are wityout two things-Expectations and Disappointments. ~ Mary Summer Rain

People are surprisingly off put just by saliva, the substance that you carry around in your mouth. You swallow it. You have no objection to it. But then it leaves your body, and you're just revolted. So it - that - just that right there to me is a fascinating thing. ~ Mary Roach

Mary properly bore the name of Virgin, and possessed to the full all the attributes of purity. She was a virgin in both body and soul, and kept all the powers of her soul and her bodily senses far above any defilement. This she did authoritatively, steadfastly, decisively and altogether inviolably at all times, as a closed gate preserves the treasure within, and a sealed book keeps hidden from sight what is written inside. The Scriptures say of her, 'This is the sealed book' (cf. Rev. 5:1-6:1; Dan. 12:4) and 'this gate shall be shut, and no man shall enter by it' (Ezek. 44:2). ~ Gregory Palamas

The trouble with human beings is not really that they love themselves too much; they ought to love themselves more. The trouble is simply that they don't love others enough.
The End of Anthropocentrism? ~ Mary Midgley

February 9th was HIS day. The day he always striked. ~ Mary Papas