Louise Quotes

When we are young, the words are scattered all around us. As they are assembled by experience, so also are we, sentence by sentence, until the story takes shape.

Love won't be tampered with, love won't go away. Push it to one side and it creeps to the other.

We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.

Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passin'.

Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer.

Every man’s island, Jean Louise, every man’s watchman, is his conscience. There is no such thing as a collective conscious.

We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.

[T]he time your friends need you is when they’re wrong, Jean Louise. They don’t need you when they’re right

When someone stabs you it's not your fault that you feel pain.

Everyone is so obsessed with themselves nowadays that they have no time for me.

From the beginning of time, in childhood, I thought that pain meant I was not loved. It meant I loved.

Remember, you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.

They are all innocent until proven guilty. But not me. I am a liar until I am proven honest.

Female friendships that work are relationships in which women help each other belong to themselves.

I am in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.

The four sayings that lead to wisdom: I was wrong I'm sorry I don't know I need help

some people meet the way the sky meets the earth, inevitably, and there is no stopping or holding back their love. It exists in a finished world, beyond the reach of common sense.

You have the power to heal your life, and you need to know that. We think so often that we are helpless, but we're not. We always have the power of our minds…Claim and consciously use your power.

To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be.

Every thought we think is creating our future.

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.

He who laughs last laughs the laughiest.

To love another human in all of her splendor and imperfect perfection , it is a magnificent task...tremendous and foolish and human.

I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.

Even before you touched me, I belonged to you; all you had to do was look at me.

Just Me, Just Me Sweet Marie, she loves just me (She also loves Maurice McGhee). No she don't, she loves just me (She also loves Louise Dupree). No she don't, she loves just me (She also loves the willow tree). No she don't, she loves just me! (Poor, poor fool, why can't you see She can love others and still love thee.)

Or - perhaps - I should just worry about my own behavior and let others be who they are.

May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

He says we should take it easy and that maybe he overreacted a bit." Dave said, "A bit? That's like Hitler saying, 'Oooh, I just meant to go for a little walk, but then I accidentally invaded Poland.

It's easy to be a naive idealist. It's easy to be a cynical realist. It's quite another thing to have no illusions and still hold the inner flame.

But you want murderous feelings? Hang around librarians," confided Gamache. "All that silence. Gives them ideas.

I am exhausted by trying to get along with the Lord.

Don't mess with anybody on a Monday. It's a bad, bad day.

When darkness is at its darkest, a star shines the brightest.

Why love what you will lose? There is nothing else to love.

There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?' She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin. "They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean." Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. "I don't know. I need help. I'm sorry. I was wrong'.

He said, 'Hi, gorgeous,' which I think is nice. I admire honesty.

Intense love always leads to mourning.

Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It's as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful. so when I'm observing that's what I'm watching for. The choices people make

The master said You must write what you see. But what I see does not move me. The master answered Change what you see.

The soul is silent. If it speaks at all it speaks in dreams.

Myrna could spend happy hours browsing bookcases. She felt if she could just get a good look at a person’s bookcase and their grocery cart, she’d pretty much know who they were.

I do not fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves.

I think here I will leave you. It has come to seem there is no perfect ending. Indeed, there are infinite endings. Or perhaps, once one begins, there are only endings.

Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.

Thinking there is something better out there in the world, something worth more than you already have- of all my mistakes,that was my biggest.

Honestly, what planet do these people live on? And why isn't it farther away?

I prefer to have some beliefs that don't make logical sense.

I have noticed that the Universe loves Gratitude. The more Grateful you are, the more goodies you get

At first I saw you everywhere. Now only in certain things, at longer intervals.

I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.

Life is change. If you aren't growing and evolving, you're standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead.

Oh Blimey O‘Reilly's pantyhose...what is the point of Shakespeare? I know he is a genius and so on, but he does rave on. What light doth through yonder window break? It's the bloody moon, for God's sake, Will, get a grip!!

Things which do not grow and change are dead things.

Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulations of a lifetime gather there. In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like Braille. I like to keep my body rolled up away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, or tell the whole story. I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.

You've been criticising yourself for years and it hasn't worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.

I've been treating you with courtesy and respect because that's the way I choose to treat everyone. But never, ever mistake kindness with weakness.

Your beliefs become your thoughts Your thoughts become your words Your words become your actions Your actions become your destiny. Mahatma Ghandi,” he said. “There’s more, but I can’t remember it all.

I am willing to release the need to be unworthy. I am worthy of the very best in life, and I now lovingly allow myself to accept it

If you fall down those stairs and break both of your legs, don't come running to me!

Now that I knew fear, I also knew it was not permanent. As powerful as it was, its grip on me would loosen. It would pass.

Where there is love there is courage, where there is courage there is peace, where there is peace there is God. And when you have God, you have everything.

What happens when you let an unsatisfactory present go on long enough? It becomes your entire history.

I say “Out” to every negative thought that comes to my mind. No person, place, or thing has any power over me, for I am the only thinker in my mind. I create my own reality and everyone in it.

Here is another marvy glimpse into the gothic basement that I call my mind.

Rosie get off your desk, and please put your beard away.

There will never come a time when I will be able to resist my emotions.

[Harriet] hated math. She hated math with every bone in her body. She spent so much time hating it that she never had time to do it.

I wanted to kill her and make her eat her fringe. And her knickers.

So what is wild? What is wilderness? What are dreams but an internal wilderness and what is desire but a wildness of the soul?

I don’t need your praise to survive. I was here first, before you were here, before you ever planted a garden. And I’ll be here when only the sun and moon are left, and the sea, and the wide field. I will constitute the field.

No matter where we live on the planet or how difficult our situation seems to be, we have the ability to overcome and transcend our circumstances.

Trying to fall out of love is like trying to climb a mountain. Blindfolded, on crutches, naked in a hail storm.

Sometimes you have to lie. But to yourself you must always tell the truth.

Things are strongest where they're broken.

We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.

Oh no. I've just accidently paid a visit to the cakeshop of love. I haven't put back my Italian cakey, but I have accidentally picked up a Dave the Tart.

...whatever/ returns from oblivion/ returns to find a voice.

In the infinity of life where I am, All is perfect, whole and complete, I no longer choose to believe in old limitations and lack, I now choose to begin to see myself As the Universe sees me --- perfect, whole, and complete.

Look, I can't go out with you, because...because...because I'm a lesbian.

You are not ashamed of our luuurve, are you, Jas?' 'Look, shut up, people might hear.' 'What do you mean, the people who live in the telephone?

The point of power is always in the present moment.

Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and being alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You have to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes too near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.

People who have a creative side and do not live it out are most disagreeable clients. They make a mountain out of a molehill, fuss about unnecessary things, are too passionately in love with somebody who is not worth so much attention, and so on. There is a kind of floating charge of energy in them which is not attached to its right object and therefore tends to apply exaggerated dynamism to the wrong situation.

Sorrow eats time. Be patient. Time eats sorrow.

Ravens are the birds I'll miss most when I die. If only the darkness into which we must look were composed of the black light of their limber intelligence. If only we did not have to die at all. Instead, become ravens.

Women without children are also the best of mothers,often, with the patience,interest, and saving grace that the constant relationship with children cannot always sustain. I come to crave our talk and our daughters gain precious aunts. Women who are not mothering their own children have the clarity and focus to see deeply into the character of children webbed by family. A child is fortuante who feels witnessed as a peron,outside relationships with parents by another adult.

Anyway, then it said on the news, 'And tonight the Prime Minister has just got to Number Ten.' I looked down at Jas and said, 'Ooer.' Meaning he'd got to number ten on the snogging scale. And then we both laughed like loons. Vati just looked at us like we were mad.

Who hurt you, once, so far beyond repair that you would meet each overture with curling lip? While we, who knew you well, your friends, (the focus of your scorn) could see your courage in the face of fear, your wit, and thoughtfulness, and will remember you with something close to love.

I have never understood the importance of having children memorize battle dates. It seems like such a waste of mental energy. Instead, we could teach them important subjects such as How the Mind Works, How to Handle Finances, How to Invest Money for Financial Security, How to be a Parent, How to Create Good Relationships, and How to Create and Maintain Self-Esteem and Self-Worth. Can you imagine what a whole generation of adults would be like if they had been taught these subjects in school along with their regular curriculum?

When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears. “Hey, Boo,” I said. “Mr. Arthur, honey,” said Atticus, gently correcting me. “Jean Louise, this is Mr. Arthur Radley. I believe he already knows you.

And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself that you tasted as many as you could.

As I saw it, all my mother's life, my father held her down, like lead strapped to her ankles. She was buoyant by nature; she wanted to travel, go to the theater, go to museums. What he wanted was to lie on the couch with the Times over his face, so that death, when it came, wouldn't seem a significant change.

It's a blessing Madame Gamache and I had at our wedding. It was read at the end of the ceremony. Now you will feel no rain For each of you will be shelter for the other Now you will feel no cold For each of you will be warmth for the other Now there is no loneliness for you Now there is no more loneliness. Now you are two persons, but there is one life before you. Go now to your dwelling place To enter into the days of your togetherness. And may your days be good and long upon this earth. (Apache Blessing)

I was not prepared: sunset, end of summer. Demonstrations of time as a continuum, as something coming to an end, not a suspension: the senses wouldn’t protect me. I caution you as I was never cautioned: you will never let go, you will never be satiated. You will be damaged and scarred, you will continue to hunger. Your body will age, you will continue to need. You will want the earth, then more of the earth– Sublime, indifferent, it is present, it will not respond. It is encompassing, it will not minister. Meaning, it will feed you, it will ravish you, it will not keep you alive.

The Red Poppy The great thing is not having a mind. Feelings: oh, I have those; they govern me. I have a lord in heaven called the sun, and open for him, showing him the fire of my own heart, fire like his presence. What could such glory be if not a heart? Oh my brothers and sisters, were you like me once, long ago, before you were human? Did you permit yourselves to open once, who would never open again? Because in truth I am speaking now the way you do. I speak because I am shattered.

To sew is to pray. Men don't understand this. They see the whole but they don't see the stitches. They don't see the speech of the creator in the work of the needle. We mend. We women turn things inside out and set things right. We salvage what we can of human garments and piece the rest into blankets. Sometimes our stitches stutter and slow. Only a woman's eyes can tell. Other times, the tension in the stitches might be too tight because of tears, but only we know what emotion went into the making. Only women can hear the prayer.

Leave the dishes. Let the celery rot in the bottom drawer of the refrigerator and an earthen scum harden on the kitchen floor. Leave the black crumbs in the bottom of the toaster. Throw the cracked bowl out and don't patch the cup. Don't patch anything. Don't mend. Buy safety pins. Don't even sew on a button. Let the wind have its way, then the earth that invades as dust and then the dead foaming up in gray rolls underneath the couch. Talk to them. Tell them they are welcome. Don't keep all the pieces of the puzzles or the doll's tiny shoes in pairs, don't worry who uses whose toothbrush or if anything matches, at all. Except one word to another. Or a thought. Pursue the authentic-decide first what is authentic, then go after it with all your heart. Your heart, that place you don't even think of cleaning out. That closet stuffed with savage mementos. Don't sort the paper clips from screws from saved baby teeth or worry if we're all eating cereal for dinner again. Don't answer the telephone, ever, or weep over anything at all that breaks. Pink molds will grow within those sealed cartons in the refrigerator. Accept new forms of life and talk to the dead who drift in though the screened windows, who collect patiently on the tops of food jars and books. Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything except what destroys the insulation between yourself and your experience or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters this ruse you call necessity.

We teach our girls how not to get raped with a sense of doom, a sense that we are fighting a losing battle. When I was writing this novel, friend after friend came to me telling me of something that had happened to them. A hand up their skirt, a boy who wouldn’t take no for an answer, a night where they were too drunk to give consent but they think it was taken from them anyway. We shared these stories with one another and it was as if we were discussing some essential part of being a woman, like period cramps or contraceptives. Every woman or girl who told me these stories had one thing in common: shame. ‘I was drunk . . . I brought him back to my house . . . I fell asleep at that party . . . I froze and I didn’t tell him to stop . . .’ My fault. My fault. My fault. When I asked these women if they had reported what had happened to the police, only one out of twenty women said yes. The others looked at me and said, ‘No. How could I have proved it? Who would have believed me?’ And I didn’t have any answer for that.

When Hades decided he loved this girl he built for her a duplicate of earth, everything the same, down to the meadow, but with a bed added. Everything the same, including sunlight, because it would be hard on a young girl to go so quickly from bright light to utter darkness Gradually, he thought, he’d introduce the night, first as the shadows of fluttering leaves. Then moon, then stars. Then no moon, no stars. Let Persephone get used to it slowly. In the end, he thought, she’d find it comforting. A replica of earth except there was love here. Doesn’t everyone want love? He waited many years, building a world, watching Persephone in the meadow. Persephone, a smeller, a taster. If you have one appetite, he thought, you have them all. Doesn’t everyone want to feel in the night the beloved body, compass, polestar, to hear the quiet breathing that says I am alive, that means also you are alive, because you hear me, you are here with me. And when one turns, the other turns— That’s what he felt, the lord of darkness, looking at the world he had constructed for Persephone. It never crossed his mind that there’d be no more smelling here, certainly no more eating. Guilt? Terror? The fear of love? These things he couldn’t imagine; no lover ever imagines them. He dreams, he wonders what to call this place. First he thinks: The New Hell. Then: The Garden. In the end, he decides to name it Persephone’s Girlhood. A soft light rising above the level meadow, behind the bed. He takes her in his arms. He wants to say I love you, nothing can hurt you but he thinks this is a lie, so he says in the end you’re dead, nothing can hurt you which seems to him a more promising beginning, more true.