Vera Caspary Quotes

Because I was moved by the sorry spectacle of a conventional young man thinking that he had become radically unconventional. ~ Vera Caspary

Frightened people try to defend themselves by accusing others of their own motives. ~ Vera Caspary

A smile couldn't be brought into court as evidence. You couldn't arrest a man because he had trembled. Brown eyes had stolen a peep at gray eyes, so what? The tone of a voice was something that died with a word. ~ Vera Caspary

The magnificence of my skeleton is hidden by the weight of my flesh. ~ Vera Caspary

The cat crossed the street daintily, pointing his feet like a ballet dancer, lifting them high as if his feet were too good for the pavement. ~ Vera Caspary

If the dreams of any so-called normal man were exposed ... there would be no more gravity and dignity left for mankind. ~ Vera Caspary

It's when you have friends that you can afford to be lonely. When you know a lot of people, loneliness becomes a luxury. It's only when you're forced to be lonely that it's bad. ~ Vera Caspary

For this was the age of The Girl. We had come out of the back parlor, out of the kitchen and nursery, we turned our backs upon the blackboards, shed aprons and paper cuffs. A war had freed us and given women a new kind of self-respect.
The adjective poor no longer preceded the once disreputable "working girl". It was honorable, it was jolly, it was even superior to be a "career girl". ~ Vera Caspary

Love is eternal. It has been the strongest motivation for human actions throughout history. Love is stronger than life. It reaches beyond the dark shadow of death. ~ Vera Caspary

Life itself is contradictory. Only death is consistent. ~ Vera Caspary

Why does every road eventually narrow into a point at the horizon? Because that's where the point lies. ~ Vera Nazarian

I wonder why the dead can't talk, look at all the crimes we'd solve if the damn dead would just Ouija board us our answers, or tell all those weird psychic people who killed 'em. ~ Vera Jane Cook

For every woman who burned a bra, there's a man burning to wear one. ~ Miss Vera

When I look at female characters, I want to recognize myself in them: my trials, my tribulations as a mother, as a lover, as a daughter. ~ Vera Farmiga

Success isn't about the end result, it's about what you learn along the way. ~ Vera Wang

Sunrise paints the sky with pinks and the sunset with peaches. Cool to warm. So is the progression from childhood to old age. ~ Vera Nazarian

Addiction is a term that's used a lot these days. People claim to be addicted to everything from romance novels to cars. They feel guilty when they enjoy something just a little too much. When it comes to food addiction, the misunderstanding is epidemic...

Until now, scientists and clinicians alike have been reluctant to acknowledge that food addiction even exists. Yes, abnormal eating behaviours have been identified throughout history, but there has long been a resistance to labelling it an addiction. ~ Vera Tarman

The fears and anxieties and obsessions wrapped up in being a parent. ~ Vera Farmiga

I'm kind of obsessed with wedges, but I go to a regular high school, so I'm not going to be wearing Vera Wang there. ~ Laura Marano

I found it not inappropriate that the years of frustration and grief and loss, of work and conflict and painful resurrection, should have led me through their dark and devious ways to this new beginning. ~ Vera Brittain

I do love directing. I'm only comfortable working in the independent film arena for a very small budget where I have creative control and I can put my stamp on it. ~ Vera Farmiga

Insinuation is not truth, just conjecture ~ Vera Jane Cook

Whether we call it religion or faith, we all battle for a balanced integrated soul. ~ Vera Farmiga

A sage is a former fool who has become tired of himself.
A foolish sage is one who forgets this.
Remember, or come full circle. ~ Vera Nazarian

On this material plane, each living being is like a street lantern lamp with a dirty lampshade.

The inside flame burns evenly and is of the same quality as all the rest - hence all of us are equal in the absolute sense, the essence, in the quality of our energy.

However, some of the lamps are "turned down" and having less light in them, burn fainter, (the beings have a less defined individuality, are less in tune with the universal All which is the same as the Will) - hence all of us are unequal in a relative sense, some of us being more aware (human beings), and others being less aware (animal beings), with small wills and small flames.

The lampshades of all are stained with the clutter of the material reality or the physical world.

As a result, it is difficult for the light of each lamp to shine through to the outside and it is also difficult to see what is on the other side of the lampshade that represents the external world (a great thick muddy ocean of fog), and hence to "feel" a connection with the other lantern lamps (other beings).

The lampshade is the physical body immersed in the ocean of the material world, and the limiting host of senses that it comes with.

The dirt of the lampshade results from the cluttering bulk of life experience accumulated without a specific goal or purpose.

The dirtier the lampshade, the less connection each soul has to the rest of the universe - and this includes ~ Vera Nazarian

I spent a lot of time reading blogs by mothers who had children with varying degrees of neural dysfunction, from schizophrenia to all sorts of different issues. And honestly, I don't think it's different for anybody. There's no right way to make sure your child will be emotionally and mentally healthier. It's just frustrating. ~ Vera Farmiga

The Dieter's Daughter

Mom's got this taco guy's poem
taped to the fridge, some ode to celery,
which she is always eating.
The celery, I mean, not the poem
which talks about green angels
and fragile corsets. I don't get it,
but Mom says by the time she reads it
she forgets she's hungry. One stalk
for breakfast, along with half a grapefruit,
or a glass of aloe vera juice,
you know that stuff that comes from cactus,
and one stalk for lunch
with some protein drink
that tastes like dried placenta,
did you know that they put cow placenta
in make-up, face cream, stuff like that?
Yuck. Well, Mom says it's never too early
to wish you looked different,
which means I got to eat that crap too.
Mom says: your body is a temple,
not the place all good twinkies go to.
Mom says: that boys remember
girls that're slender.
Mom says that underneath all this fat
there's a whole new me,
one I'd really like if only I gave myself
the chance. Mom says: you are
what you eat, which is why she eats celery,
because she wants to be thin,
not green or stringy, of course--
am I talking too fast?--
but thin as paper
like the hearts we cut out
and send to ourselves,
don't tell anyone,
like the hearts of gold
melons we eat
down
to the bitter rind. ~ Anita Endrezze

Faith is important to me. ~ Vera Farmiga

I was no longer capable of either enthusiasm or fear. Once an ecstatic idealist […], I had now passed - like the rest of my contemporaries who had survived thus far - into a permanent state of numb disillusion.

Whatever part of my brief adulthood I chose to look back upon - the restless pre-War months at home, the naïve activities of a college student, the tutelage to horror and death as a V.A.D. nurse, the ever-deepening night of fear and suspense and agony in a provincial town, in a university city, in London, in the Mediterranean, in France - it all seemed to have meant one thing, and one thing only, 'a striving, and a striving, and an ending in nothing.'

Now there were no more disasters to dread and no friends left to wait for; with the ending of apprehension had come a deep, nullifying blankness, a sense of walking in a thick mist which hid all sights and muffled all sounds. I had no further experience to gain from the War; nothing remained except to endure it. ~ Vera Brittain

The writers could always do an about-face and change everything ~ Vera Farmiga

Gift giving is a true art.
1. You need to understand the person to whom you intend to give the gift.
2. You need to know what they truly want.
3. You must be able to give it to them.
Anything less is a symptom of varying degrees, on your part, of ignorance, distance, or insult.
But if you cannot afford the right gift, telling the person what you would do if you could, justifies everything - as you present that not-so-perfect substitute. ~ Vera Nazarian

Once upon a time there were two countries, at war with each other. In order to make peace after many years of conflict, they decided to build a bridge across the ocean. But because they never learned each other's language properly, they could never agree on the details, so the two halves of the bridge they started to build never met. To this day the bridge extends far into the ocean from both sides, and simply ends half way, miles in the wrong direction from the meeting point. And the two countries are still at war. ~ Vera Nazarian

The Empress said, her own breath coming in gasps, lips against her daughter's cold forehead and soft hair - her hair at least was still the same, soft, delicate, sweet cobwebs. . . . ~ Vera Nazarian

One of the strangest things is the act of creation.
You are faced with a blank slate - a page, a canvas, a block of stone or wood, a silent musical instrument.
You then look inside yourself. You pull and tug and squeeze and fish around for slippery raw shapeless things that swim like fish made of cloud vapor and fill you with living clamor. You latch onto something. And you bring it forth out of your head like Zeus giving birth to Athena.
And as it comes out, it takes shape and tangible form.
It drips on the canvas, and slides through your pen, it springs forth and resonates into the musical strings, and slips along the edge of the sculptor's tool onto the surface of the wood or marble.
You have given it cohesion. You have brought forth something ordered and beautiful out of nothing.
You have glimpsed the divine. ~ Vera Nazarian

I'm not really a girl who likes to go out to lunch or cocktails or store openings. ~ Vera Wang

Well, you're not exactly Superman, but you're awfully available. ~ Vera-Ellen

I do make a good ragu pasta, which everyone seems to like. Or that could be just me talking; who knows what they really think. I actually stole the recipe from my older sister Vera, who also loves to cook. I took all my recipes from her. ~ Taissa Farmiga

Loving Vera Dietz was the scariest thing that ever happened to me. ~ A.S. King

I see myself as an arbiter of taste. ~ Vera Wang

In the quiet moments, the discoveries are made. ~ Vera Farmiga

There are opportunities to find mistakes around every corner you turn, Richard. ~ Vera Jane Cook

People who are too optimistic seem annoying. This is an unfortunate misinterpretation of what an optimist really is.
An optimist is neither naive, nor blind to the facts, nor in denial of grim reality. An optimist believes in the optimal usage of all options available, no matter how limited. As such, an optimist always sees the big picture. How else to keep track of all that's out there? An optimist is simply a proactive realist.
An idealist focuses only on the best aspects of all things (sometimes in detriment to reality); an optimist strives to find an effective solution. A pessimist sees limited or no choices in dark times; an optimist makes choices.
When bobbing for apples, an idealist endlessly reaches for the best apple, a pessimist settles for the first one within reach, while an optimist drains the barrel, fishes out all the apples and makes pie.
Annoying? Yes. But, oh-so tasty! ~ Vera Nazarian

Science uses the Red Shift to measure deep cosmic distances. But how to measure deep historic time? How about - the Saffron Shift.

If history itself had a color, it is . . . like wood or bark, or living forest floor.

Assigning hues to time periods, the sum total of history is saffron-brown - but the chromatic arc starts from blinding white (prehistory) to sun-yellow (Ancient Greece), then deepening to pale wood tones (Dark Ages) and finally exploding like an infinite chord into a full brown palette that includes mahoganies, siennas (Middle Ages), oak, sandalwood (the Renaissance), cherry, maple (Age of Reason), and near-black old woods (Industrial Revolution) for which there may not be names.

As time approaches our own, the wood-brown palette fades to a weird glassy colorlessness, goes black-and-white for a brief span as you think of photographs of your grandparents, and then again fades until we get a clear medium that is the color of the world.

And the present moment is perfectly transparent.

It's only as you start looking into the future, that the colors start returning. The glass is turning silvery with a murky haze, and there is blue somewhere in the distance . . . ~ Vera Nazarian

I felt at any moment I might be swooped up and eaten by the profound sad tales of a Weeping Willow. ~ Vera Jane Cook

I'm hooked on Polanski's films, his psychological thrillers. I love 'Rosemary's Baby,' I love 'Repulsion.' ~ Vera Farmiga

She doesn't respond, of course. She smirks. I guess she thinks of a smirk as a greeting. ~ Vera Jane Cook

There's just a deeper level of sophistication in the writing of female characters on TV. ~ Vera Farmiga

I can't do Los Angeles. I've always been the anti-Barbie. I don't want to be in a place where almost every woman walks around with puffy lips, little noses and breasts large enough to nourish a small country. ~ Vera Farmiga

She didn't want to go to that place, and she had to force herself not to, but it was standing between she and her father's memory; to keep him
close she'd have to allow the ache ~ Vera Jane Cook

You know how to dance, young lady?"
"I was born knowing. ~ Vera Jane Cook

You don't necessarily have to be religious to pray. ~ Vera Farmiga

Sometimes, being true to yourself means changing your mind. Self changes, and you follow. ~ Vera Nazarian