Mathis Quotes

Hattie clambered from the train, her skirt still hemmed with Georgia mud, the dream of Philadelphia round as a marble in her mouth and the fear of it a needle in her chest. ~ Ayana Mathis

At home they thought of white people as a vague but powerful entity
like the forces that control the weather, that capable of destruction, that hidden from view. ~ Ayana Mathis

There is always a man eager to explain my mental illness to me. They all do it so confidently, motioning to their Hemingway and Bukowski bookshelf as they compare my depression to their late-night loneliness. There is always someone that rejected them that they equate their sadness to and a bottle of gin (or a song playing, or a movie) close by that they refer to as their cure. Somehow, every soft confession of my Crazy that I hand to them turns into them pulling out pieces of themselves to prove how it really is in my head.

So many dudes I've dated have faces like doctors ready to institutionalize
and love my crazy (but only on Friday nights.)

They tell their friends about my impulsive decision making and how I "get them" more than anyone they've ever met but leave out my staring off in silence for hours and the self-inflicted bruises on my cheeks.

None of them want to acknowledge a crazy they can't cure.

They want a crazy that fits well into a trope and gives them a chance to play Hero. And they always love a Crazy that provides them material to write about.

Truth is they love me best as a cigarette cloud of impossibility, with my lipstick applied perfectly and my Crazy only being pulled out when their life needs a little spice.

They don't want me dirty, having not left my bed for days. Not diseased. Not real.

So they invite me over when they're going through writer's block but don't answer m ~ Lora Mathis

She wished the man outside really were Thomas, so she and Billups could again have the same enemy and the same fear.O ~ Ayana Mathis

My God, but you are hard to love," Hattie ~ Ayana Mathis

God designed the church to be a community of lifelong learners under the earthly guidance of leaders who are teachers at heart. The Christian faith is not a finite course of study for the front-end of adulthood. Our mind-set shouldn't be to first do our learning and then spend the rest of our lives drawing from that original deposit of knowledge. Rather, ongoing health in the Christian life is inextricably linked to ongoing learning. ~ David Mathis

I try to find the beauty in things. On dark days I sit in my armchair looking at clouds and I am awed at how rain is made. ~ Ayana Mathis

How soon Mathis had been proved right and how soon his own little sophistries had been exploded in his face! ~ Ian Fleming

I love the house that I've been living in for over 40 years. I really am a homebody and I still love to play golf. ~ Johnny Mathis

Thank you," he said. "Welcome. Welcome especially to Mr. Coyle Mathis and the other men and women of Forster Hollow who are going to be employed at this rather strikingly energy-inefficient plant. It's a long way from Forster Hollow, isn't it?"

"So, yes, welcome," he said. "Welcome to the middle class! That's what I want to say. Although, quickly, before I go any further, I also want to say to Mr. Mathis here in the front row: I know you don't like me. And I don't like you. But, you know, back when you were refusing to have anything to do with us, I respected that. I didn't like it, but I had respect for your position. For your independence. You see, because I actually came from a place a little bit like Forster Hollow myself, before I joined the middle class. And, now you're middle-class, too, and I want to welcome you all, because it's a wonderful thing, our American middle class. It's the mainstay of economies all around the globe!"

"And now that you've got these jobs at this body-armor plant," he continued, "You're going to be able to participate in those economies. You, too, can help denude every last scrap of native habitat in Asia, Africa, and South America! You, too, can buy six-foot-wide plasma TV screens that consume unbelievable amounts of energy, even when they're not turned on! But that's OK, because that's why we threw you out of your homes in the first places, so we could strip-mine your ancestral hills and feed the coal-fired generators t ~ Jonathan Franzen

A fool mistakes meekness for weakness and a quiet tongue for an idle mind. ~ R.A. Mathis

I really, deeply believe in the primacy of character. I believe that my job as a writer is to put a believable human being on a page. ~ Ayana Mathis

I also met, early on Ella Fitzgerald. Her songbooks are some of the most amazing bodies of work. ~ Johnny Mathis

My mom was an amazing singer and music was a big part of my life, so I grew up listening to Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini; I used to watch 'The Andy Williams Show' on TV. I was very musical, so I was watching stuff that most kids my age wouldn't be interested in. ~ Gloria Estefan

You ought to go now before she wakes up, Hattie said. She handed her daughter to Pearl. I'm in the floor, she thought. ~ Ayana Mathis

She had been with her share of schemers and men who were forever building castles in the sky. All of those dreams made out of clouds; when it rained - and it always did - they were left with nothing but the soggy shirts on their backs. ~ Ayana Mathis

Life isn't fair. It doesn't make sense. This unfairness is felt by everyone, from the Las Vegas tunnel dweller all the way to the executive in the high-rise. To some, these "unfair" experiences become a chastening ball and chain attached for the remainder of life. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

Tools that make life simpler ... tend to make life more hectic, and more prone to disruptions. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

All of us, writers and non-writers alike, have incredible well-springs of personal experience and history. And we also have imagination - which I think is a kind of human miracle. ~ Ayana Mathis

The difference between the right spouse and the wrong spouse is the difference between a soul mate and a cell mate. ~ R.A. Mathis

Superstition is that which we know in our minds to be rubbish. Faith is that which we hope in our hearts to be true. ~ R.A. Mathis

Don't drop your books. You might lose your lesson. ~ Greg Mathis

Some things you can't apologize for, you just have to try to get around them," Hattie replied. "For your own sake too, so you can have a little peace. ~ Ayana Mathis

It was important to do what needed doing, no matter the day or the circumstance. ~ Ayana Mathis

I think I'm going to skip all of my classes today because I need a "me" day. The problem with "me" days is that I need them four times a week. The problem with me is that I'm very smart and very capable (or so I've been told) but my laziness hinders me. Laziness. They forgot to add procrastination, self-destruction, and the inability to leave my bed to the list. The problem with me is that I've dealt with this before but have no idea what to do next. I should email my past teachers and ask them what I did after I sent them messages excusing my week-long absences from class due to "personal reasons." I should stop scratching my hand in case my mom asks me if I'm okay again. I am okay. I am doing fine. But I have an itch that I cannot place, an itch that changes locations when my fingers find it. The problem with me is that I will focus on it completely until it goes away. The problem with this feeling is that it never goes away. It has always been one large itch that I cannot place. ~ Lora Mathis

The first things people always ask are,
why?
And how?

But not with me.

I don't want to do anything.
I don't want to be anything.
I want to disappear elegantly.
I want people to look for my goodbye note
and find nothing but smoke. ~ Lora Mathis

No one believes in Hell--until they get there. ~ R.A. Mathis

Every player eventually loses all their money. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

There aren't a lot of roles written for women who are strong willed. ~ Samantha Mathis

No one could tell her why things had turned out as they had, not August or the pastor or God himself. ~ Ayana Mathis

Some day we're gonna have interactive television where you can pick the shot that you want. You can watch defense, or you can watch the end-zone shot, or you can watch an isolated shot of Terance Mathis or whoever you want to. Because right now, the only thing that you watch is what the producer or director decides to show you. ~ John Madden

And fortunately, I haven't had any problem with my voice. I've been able to sing at a level of consistency that the people are expecting. ~ Johnny Mathis

Doing a piece on film is completely different from doing it onstage. ~ Samantha Mathis

I was full of myth, which is to say full of an idea. ~ Cleopatra Mathis

I try to look for the beauty in things. ~ Ayana Mathis

We're in danger of losing a huge piece of our cultural inheritance to thugs and looters, if we haven't lost it already. ~ R.A. Mathis

I want to talk
about what happened
without mentioning
how much it hurt.
There has to be a way.
To care for the wounds
without reopening them.
To name the pain
without inviting it back
into me. ~ Lora Mathis

One definition for rebound is, increasing strength after a previous decline. Another is to bounce back and make a recovery ~ Nikki Mathis Thompson

Self-preservation - this is your new focus.
The only obligation of today is to preserve the breath of tomorrow. Then, once footing is regained, you can begin to fulfill debt obligations.
Debt is hindsight. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

It's just that some people are lucky and people still seem to enjoy the music. ~ Johnny Mathis

I am never going to sound like Johnny Mathis. ~ Clay Aiken

There were too many disappointments to name and too much heartbreak. They were beyond punishment or forgiveness, beyond what they had inflicted on each other, beyond love. ~ Ayana Mathis

In Georgia, there was a eucalyptus tree in the wood across from Hattie's house, but the plant had been hard to come by in the Philadelphia winter. ~ Ayana Mathis

Now, we struggle, brothers and sisters, and we strive. We have our trials and our tribulations but we are blessed. We go to bed, praise Jesus, and we rise again in the morning. And if that's not a blessing, I don't know what is. ~ Ayana Mathis

Anxiety has forged another weather. ~ Cleopatra Mathis

When they arrived at his apartment, Allen's roommate Tim, was lying on the faux black leather sofa in the living room watching an NBA play-off game on their fifty-two inch flat-screen. Owen was barely over five feet tall with a pale complexion, buck teeth, kinky hair, and he wore thick glasses that made his eyes look like they were popping out at you in 3-D; but he was sweet as pie and had a heart of gold. ~ Monica Mathis-Stowe

Move aside Ebola, smallpox, and AIDS; make room for narcolepsy. I would become shunned and avoided. Perhaps the
people at the casino thought that this fatigue disease was contagious.
Just because I yawn and you yawn shortly
after doesn't mean that you have suddenly been infected with narcolepsy. It would be silly if they had in fact thought this. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

Fine doesn't call before dawn. ~ Ayana Mathis

Your heart is the size of a fist because you need it to fight. ~ Lora Mathis

Precisely in the most desperate moments, when having the masculine role feels most unfair, when we're our most tired, running on fumes, and need to keep providing in all these aspects, this is when the provision of God tastes the sweetest. ~ David Mathis

It seemed to him that every time he made one choice in his life, he said no to another. All of those things he could not do or be were huddled inside of him; they might spring up at any moment, and he would be hobbled with regret. ~ Ayana Mathis

When you do interviews, you have to talk about yourself - and I like to find out about other people. I am so familiar with everything that I do. I've said it over and over again. I think it is boring. ~ Johnny Mathis

I wonder if the brass understands that people are getting killed. ~ Ayana Mathis

She didn't know what to make of this sporadic urgency with him. It had confounded and humiliated her for the thirty years of their marriage. These endless pregnancies. And worse, her body's insistence on a man who was the greatest mistake of her life. ~ Ayana Mathis

When I was younger, I was told that there is too much inside me. That I have feelings where others have bone. At the age of seven, a doctor tapped inside my head and asked, "Do you choke on memories from time to time? Do you cry for no good reason at all? Do words take a hammer to your head and crack your skull?" Yes, yes, yes, I nodded. "Then you've definitely got them," he said, as he checked off a box on his list. "Too many feelings. What a shame. Try not to keep them inside or you'll drown. ~ Lora Mathis

I really, really enjoy music and that's why I do what I do. ~ Johnny Mathis

The thing to do was to insult her or slap her or run her out into the night. She'd left him with all their children. She was holding another man's baby in her arms. Anyone would agree that he ought to do something terrible to her, but she had been gone fifteen hours, and in that fifteen hours his life had crumbled like a lump of dry earth. ~ Ayana Mathis

Don't forget:
Ruts aren't that much different ...
from graves. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

I imagine Johnny Mathis hates Bin Laden as much as I do, but could Johnny agree Bin Laden had a better speechwriter than Bush? "Axis of Evil"? Come on. "A swimmer in the ocean does not fear the rain" is much more powerful propaganda. Poetic, even. ~ John Waters

Was I a fool to believe in fate or in some destined illusionary path? I don't know. But we all need something to believe in. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

The correlations between real life experience and the storylines in novels are never as direct or simple as they might seem. ~ Ayana Mathis

All decisions we've come to accept as right or wrong are ingrained in us from the society in which we abide. Rights and wrongs are not universally known or transferable. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

When I was 12 and started to take singing lessons from a woman, she told me that I would probably spend the rest of my life taking care of my voice. ~ Johnny Mathis

All of them
Hattie and Willie and Evelyn and even ruined, crazy Walter
were little lights; sparks flying upward in dark places, trying to stay alight though they were compelled toward ash. They were nearly extinguished one moment, then orange and luminous the next. ~ Ayana Mathis

Down the hall the children slept three to a bedroom; Hattie could almost hear them growing, their wrists lengthening and poking out beyond the cuffs of their sleeves, their feet outgrowing their shoes, their shoulders widening and pulling the fabric of their coats taut. ~ Ayana Mathis

This is what you have . . . that many don't: TIME ~ John-Talmage Mathis

The butterflies were still alive in the Mason jar. August turned to her and said, "We gon' make it through, Hattie." She snatched the jar from the table and hurled it at the wall behind August. The two of them watched the butterflies, stunned and struggling in the broken glass.O ~ Ayana Mathis

Eudine did not reply. She was indecipherable, so ageless and immaculate. Her eyes were the same caramel shade as her skin. Her face was a placid lake, such depths. A woman with a face like that could be a confessor, could be told anything, no matter how awful, and remain steady as granite. ~ Ayana Mathis

Gossip is an unavoidable evil at school, work, or wherever, but when the HR department gossips, it elevates into malice. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

Mother was a beautiful young woman; the house was too plain, too small to contain her. I watched her; for the first time I understood that she had an inner life that didn't have anything to do with me or my brothers and sisters. ~ Ayana Mathis

He looked up at Mathis to see how bored he was getting with these introspective refinements of what, to Mathis, was a simple question of duty. Mathis smiled back at him. ~ Ian Fleming

You really have to create everything in order to come away with a full human being on screen. ~ Samantha Mathis

The snow is tending toward nothingness. ~ Cleopatra Mathis

You've had many ordeals in the past. During these ordeals, life seemed unbearable. You may have collapsed from the exhaustion of hopelessness and curled into a fetal position. Regardless of how difficult this new ordeal may be, as with the others, this too will be overcome. It will make you stronger. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

It had been easy to be comfortable with each other when there was a glass wall between them. ~ Ayana Mathis

Too much, too little, too late, to ever try again. Too much, too little, too late, let's end it being friends. ~ Johnny Mathis

At last, her mother and sisters exited the station and came to stand next to her. "Mama," Hattie said. "I'll never go back. Never. ~ Ayana Mathis

My casino experience is to someone else their experience with their employer, of how the company has elected to behave solely for greed, profits, and spite. But we shouldn't give up hope in such situations. We have an obligation to separate the justices from the injustices. We should hold these corporate neighbors accountable for the wrongs that they commit.
Someone has to. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

There may be no secrets in small towns, but there are no strangers either. ~ R.A. Mathis

Six wasn't sure religion was any more than a lot of people caught up in a collective delirium that disappeared the minute they stepped out of the church doors and onto the street. ~ Ayana Mathis

I have looked at my father many times and wondered how he could stand knowing he was my mother's ruin. He was too weak to leave her. Mother should have thrown him out and saved them both, like Sissy was saving the two of us. ~ Ayana Mathis

I think that people have some sort of vision that everybody is moving towards perfection, and that there is some sort of set steps or something like that that you can move through to get to that place, and that that's sort of the project of being alive. ~ Ayana Mathis

It seems to me that everything is on its way to becoming something else, giving itself up in the service of another. In ~ Ayana Mathis

Until a job is outsourced or streamlined through an innovation, an employee is trained to operate robotically. This is what a brand is. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

When our life in him is healthy and vibrant, we do not only ache to keep sinking our roots down deep in him, but we also want to stretch out our branches and extend his goodness to others. ~ David Mathis

When I was blonde I was perceived as an innocent and sweet young girl. ~ Samantha Mathis

Love me, love me, love me,
Say you do.
Let me fly away with you.
For my love is like the wind,
And wild is the wind.

- Wild is the Wind ~ Ned Washington

So I resort back to such ideology: we all have a calling. We all have an ultimate purpose. On that is laid before us by destiny or one that is positioned in the crosshairs of our long-term goals. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

The critics and the reviewers are more frightening than anything else! ~ Ayana Mathis

It's very much like opera singers. They do the same thing. The first thing in the morning and the last thing at night, the thing they think about is their voice and how to take care of it. ~ Johnny Mathis

Maybe we have only a finite amount of love to give. We're born with our portion, and if we love and are not loved enough in return, it's depleted. ~ Ayana Mathis

His soul was susceptible to god's whimsy, just as his body was susceptible to any opportunistic thing that might hurt it. If he'd known how to pray, Six would have asked God to take his gift away. ~ Ayana Mathis

We go out in the fog in the morning won't burn. ~ Cleopatra Mathis

Marrying Mathis made sense. It would solve all their problems. Except her problem of wanting Jorgen. But it hurt too much to think about that. ~ Melanie Dickerson

Listen to people; nothing is accomplished if you dismiss other viewpoints. And of most importance: be confident. Have confidence in yourself. Have confidence in your resume - in your skills and in your qualifications. Be willing to learn. ~ John-Talmage Mathis

Good. He smiled. The truth is supposed to hurt! ~ R.A. Mathis

My favorite singer to this day is Nat King Cole. I've tried to emulate his phrasing. It is so absolutely beautiful to listen to his lovely voice. ~ Johnny Mathis

You act like your whole life was one long January afternoon." Lawrence said. "It wouldn't do any good to go around with my head in the clouds. ~ Ayana Mathis

We have to prepare our cities for the increasing scarcity of resources by increasing their density and energy efficiency. ~ Mathis Wackernagel

When I do an album I try to find a producer that's excited about something that they want me to sing, and I check with the record company to find out what they think they can sell - which is their No. 1 priority. ~ Johnny Mathis