Reunions Quotes

Reunions are the first day of school all over again. Time casts away familiarity and replaces it with warm confusion. Seeing how the years have frayed the friends of our youth reminds us that we too have irrevocably changed and can never return to a state of innocence again. ~ Stewart Stafford

I hated reunions. It made myself felt so little afterwards. When I was there, I couldn't help not knowing. But after I knew things, I couldn't stop comparing. I was congratulating people when they told me the good news, but deep inside I was wondering whether their good news was better than mine. Life wasn't supposed to be a competition, but it really felt like one. ~ Marcella Purnama

Stumbling closer, I held up the manuscript, the pages flapping frantically in the wind. "I take it this is a murder mystery? You killed the ex-fiancée and thanked her in the dedication? Mighty dignified of you, I must say."

"Nah. It's a horror novel. But yeah, the bimbo dies in the end. Bob Hall says it's going to be a bestseller, so I figured I owed her some thanks for the inspiration." He edged a few feet closer, his smile spread from ear to ear. The glimmer in his eyes flickered toward the ocean, breaking our connection. He hung his head, licked his lips, then returned his eyes to mine, restoring the connection with an intense smolder. "Are you gonna get over here, or what?"

Letting out a soft chuckle, the tears began to blind me. "Make me. ~ Rachael Wade

A short poem from my new book, The Lost Journal of my Second Trip to Pergatory,
Thorny Crowns
Of course the gold one was for special occasions, weddings, etc,
silver for family reunions, office-casual type affairs.
Bronze was a everyday choice; during yard work its burnished surface shone in sunlight.
There were various colors and holiday appropriate ones.
I could never find the hatboxes they were stored in.
But the wooden one was reserved for the long suffering caused by family.
Stevie's funeral, my hospital trips and sister's rebellion rated real wood.
One tip filed extra sharp produced a fine and dramatic line of blood droplets on her brow. ~ Michelle Hartman

A food truce, the picnic suspension of oedipal feeling that permits the generations to love each other at family reunions. ~ Karen Russell

It takes a certain amount of guts to go to your class reunions. ~ Dick Cavett

My mother described her reactions better than I ever could mine: she said she was "surprised with thunder" that her boy had come back, and that the happiness in her heart was "as deep as the sea". ~ Saroo Brierley

Asking why separates opportunity from a distracting time waste. When opportunities abound (meetups, Twitter chats, speed networking, reunions, summits, and seminars), how do you efficiently and quickly sort the productive from the less than productive? Here's the why filter I use: Is the opportunity aligned with my goal(s)? Will my participation add value to the other attendees and be valuable for me? Does the opportunity expand my network and/or strengthen existing relationships? What does my gut say? (Yes, I'm a big believer in trusting your gut.) ~ J. Kelly Hoey

I wish I could believe in the otherworld I wish I could believe in a place Of reunions outside of memory ~ Edward Hirsch

Hi, I'm Adele Czerny. I don't really have a long speech. I mean, I sat through these things when I was your age, and they're boring. I'm just going to say a few things about Noah and Raven Day. Did any of you guys know him?"
In unison, Gansey and Adam started to lift their hands and just as quickly dropped them. Yes, they knew him. No, they had not known him. Noah, alive, had been before their time here. Noah, dead, was a phenomenon, not an acquaintance.
"Well, you were missing out," she said. "My mom always said he was a firecracker, which just meant he was always getting speeding tickets and jumping on tables at family reunions and stuff. He always had so many ideas. He was so hyper."
Adam and Gansey looked at each other. They had always had the sense that the Noah they knew was not the true Noah. It was just disconcerting to hear how much Noahness death had stripped. It was impossible to not wonder what Noah would have done with himself if he had lived.
"Anyway, I'm here because I was actually the first one he told about his idea for Raven Day. He called me one evening, I guess it would've been when he was fourteen, and he told me he'd had this dream about ravens fighting and battling. He said they were all different colours and sizes and shapes, and he was inside them, and they were, like, swirling around him." She motioned around herself in a whirlwind; she had Noah's hands, Noah's elbows. "And he told me, 'I think it would be a cool art project.' And ~ Maggie Stiefvater

In genealogy you might say that interest lies in the eye of the gene holder. The actual descendants are far more intrigued with it all than the listeners, who quickly sink into a narcoleptic coma after the second or third great-great-somebody kills a bear or beheads Charles I, invents the safety pin or strip-mines Poland, catalogues slime molds, dances flamenco, or falls in love with a sheep. Genealogy is a forced march through stories. Yet everyone loves stories, and that is one reason we seek knowledge of our own blood kin.
Through our ancestors we can witness their times. Or, we think, there might be something in their lives, an artist's or a farmer's skill, an affection for a certain landscape, that will match or explain something in our own. If we know who they were, perhaps we will know who we are. And few cultures have been as identity-obsessed as ours. So keen is this fascination with ancestry, genealogy has become an industry. Family reunions choke the social calendar. Europe crawls with ancestor-seeking Americans. Your mother or your spouse or your neighbors are too busy to talk to you because they are on the Internet running "heritage quests." We have climbed so far back into our family trees, we stand inches away from the roots where the primates dominate. ~ Ellen Meloy

I was into sports in high school, but I got kicked out of Richmond High at 17, so I never graduated. However, I still get invites to the class reunions ... I don't know that I want to see how everyone looks now. ~ Ryan Stiles

The trouble with class reunions is that old flames have become even older. ~ Doug Larson

I think of my shows as family reunions. I give 100% every time. I just do. It's a huge therapeutic release. Also I love my touring family. And I love my audiences very much. ~ Paula Cole

I deeply understood that there is no such thing as an isolated act. This particular act had looped and wrapped and folded in on itself and other acts, pushed forward, pulled a hidden past into the present, and placed it in front of me as if to say: Isn't this a fine moment? Who knew? ~ Patricia Florin

I have always considered reunions to be a way to make a quick buck, and it sells short my own experience of it the first time around. ~ Eric Avery

We take too much for granted when it comes to separations and reunions, and pay the price for not understanding the natural human imperative to make and continually remake secure connections with our most important others. Don't take my word for this. Check your own launchings and landings. Play with them. Perform them properly, and then improperly or not at all. Compare the difference. Experience for yourself. ~ Stan Tatkin

I once believed soft, warm, beautiful things could never flourish in an environment of hard concrete and cold, dark bricks. ~ Tom Winton

He no longer loves the person whom he loved ten years ago. I quite believe it. She is no longer the same, nor is he. He was young, and she also; she is quite different. He would perhaps love her yet, if she were what she was then. ~ Blaise Pascal

I do not go to the reunions though because it make me feel old ~ Dr Jenan Alatrakchi By Aleksandr Orlov A Simples Life

What strikes me about high-school reunions is the realization that these are people one has known one's whole life. ~ Paul Theroux

At first, I was shocked that Diane could even suggest this family reunion [on television], and then I realized this is just the way of the world, or at least the way of fin de siecle America. Not only would the next revolution be televised, but so would every other little stupid thing. It was already happening: Television reunions between adopted children and their birth parents ... ~ Elizabeth Wurtzel

Class reunions were about curiosity; about satisfaction at the avoidance of the mistakes of one's contemporaries, now revealed in their emerging life histories; about reflecting on the ravages - and injustices - of time; and of realizing, perhaps, how strange and random are the twists and turns of fate. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Elephants love reunions. They recognize one another after years and years of separation and greet each other with wild, boisterous joy. There's bellowing and trumpeting, ear flapping and rubbing. Trunks entwine. ~ Jennifer Richard Jacobson

Look, the world is everywhere: satellites, end tables, the pink and white poinsettias outside the church; reunions and degrees. All those radiant asterisks ... Soon it will all make sense. ~ Terrance Hayes

But Quantrill and his men were no more bandits than the men on the other side. I've been to reunions of Quantrill's men two or three times. All they were trying to do was protect the property on the Missouri side of the line ... ~ Harry S. Truman

Christ has made of death a narrow starlit strip between the companionships of yesterday and the reunions of tomorrow. ~ William Jennings Bryan

When Clark was asked about liberation from Moosburg he said, "It was a very emotional period, especially for a few of us who had been very old prisoners. We were closely bonded, so some of most wonderful friends I've ever had came out of those camps. We stayed together and helped each other. None of us feel it was a total dead loss, the experience I mean. A lot of us learned a lot about ourselves, about our limits, and we certainly learned how to get along with other people in difficult circumstances, which is a very important lesson. So I am sure that there are many people who don't share that view. But they've disappeared. They don't come to reunions. You never hear from them. I just hope they are happy too. But I doubt whether they're as happy as we are." What ~ Donald E. Phillips

The reunions have always been more fun than serious. When you're with the guys, you're eighteen year old again. ~ Edward Heffron

My high school wasn't a big public school; it was tiny. There were 36 girls in my graduating class. We were a big group of girls that by the time senior year came along couldn't wait to get away from school fast enough but we loved each other. It's really fun to see the girls at reunions now. ~ Cecily Von Ziegesar

Contradictions are the impossible chasms that create forever separations. God is the forever bridge that creates impossible reunions. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Life has few things you could be grateful for, such as Reunions. ~ Emna Mizouni

I read old novels. The reason is simple: I prefer proper endings. Marriages and deaths, noble sacrifices and miraculous restorations, tragic separations and unhoped-for reunions, great falls and dreams fulfilled; these, in my view, constitute an ending worth the wait. They should come after adventures, perils, dangers and dilemmas, and wind everything up nice and neatly. Endings like this are to be found more commonly in old novels than new ones, so I read old novels. ~ Diane Setterfield

I blinked at my mate. Then grinned, not bothering to hide the savagery within it. "Hybern has no idea about the hell that's about to rain down upon them, do they." "Here's to family reunions," was all Rhys said. Then ~ Sarah J. Maas

Weddings matter. Not just because they mark a significant turning point in a couple's lives, which they do. Weddings also serve as rare reunions for extended families and long-lost friends. They are a continuation of sacred rights and centuries-old traditions. And, most important, they are opportunities for joy. We don't have enough of those in this harried, workaholic society-whole days set aside just to eat and drink and dance and be together. This is the real gift if the wedding, and it's given both to the couple and to everyone lucky enough to be present at their union. ~ Ellen McCarthy

There are two basic coping mechanisms. One consists of dreading the chaos, fighting it and abusing oneself after losing, building a structured life of work/marriage/gym/reunions/children/depression/affair/divorce/alcoholism/recovery/heart attack, in which every decision is a reaction against the fear of the worst (make children to avoid being forgotten, fuck someone at the reunion in case the opportunity never comes again, and the Holy Grail of paradoxes: marry to combat loneliness, then plunge into that constant marital desire to be alone). This is the life that cannot be won, but it does offer the comforts of battle - the human heart is content when distracted by war.

"The second mechanism is an across-the-board acceptance of the absurd all around us. Everything that exists, from consciousness to the digestive workings of the human body to sound waves and bladeless fans, is magnificently unlikely. It seems so much likelier that things would not exist at all and yet the world shows up to class every morning as the cosmos takes attendance. Why combat the unlikeliness? This is the way to survive in this world, to wake up in the morning and receive a cancer diagnosis, discover that a man has murdered forty children, discover that the milk has gone sour, and exclaim, 'How unlikely! Yet here we are,' and have a laugh, and swim in the chaos, swim without fear, swim without expectation but always with an appreciation of every whim, the beauty of screwball twists and jerk ~ Jaroslav Kalfar

Age, with shamefaced relief, has learned the solvent quality of Time. It is this quality which makes possible the contemplation of certain embarrassing heavenly reunions ... ~ Margaret Deland

Reunions are always fraught with awkward tensions - the necessity to account for oneself; the attempt to find, through memories, an ember of the old emotions ... ~ Anita Shreve

... reunions, she felt, were not much more than a scratching at the vague itch of memory. And like scratching, they rarely helped - indeed, scratching often made matters worse, as any dermatologist would tell you. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

I've got a great dislike of reunions. It's a little like trying to go back and relive the best parts of your life, but you can't do it. Nothing is ever the same. ~ Eric Burdon

Lady Sarah Henbery was his hostess, and the inspired projector of a new scheme of existence (that was, in effect, the repudiation of any scheme) that had become quite the 'thing.' She had found life an arbitrary design - a coil of days (like fancy pebbles, dull or sparkling) set in the form of a mainspring, and each gem responsible to the design. Then she had said, 'To-day shall not follow yesterday or precede to-morrow'; and she had taken her pebbles from their setting and mixed them higgledy-piggledy, and so was in the way to wear or spend one or the other as caprice moved her. And she became without design and responsibility, and was thus able to indulge a natural bent towards capriciousness to the extent that - having a face for each and every form of social hypocrisy and licence - she was presently hardly to be put out of countenance by the extremist expression of either.

It followed that her reunions were popular with worldlings of a certain order.

("The Accursed Cordonnier") ~ Bernard Capes

Whenever you do a show, there are happy reunions of people; it's very familial. ~ Donna McKechnie

The enormous power held by each of the southern committee chairmen individually was multiplied by their unity, by what White called a "oneness found nowhere else in politics." The symbol was the legendary "Southern Caucus," the meetings of the twenty-two southern senators which were held in the office of their leader, Richard Brevard Russell of Georgia, whenever crisis threatened - meetings that were, White said, "for all the world like reunions of a large and highly individualistic family whose members are nevertheless bound by one bond." In those meetings, the southern position was agreed upon, its tactics mapped, its front made solid. ~ Robert A. Caro