Tiffany Ray Quotes

If Mrs. Charles were a color, she'd be yellow - bright, cheerful, golden rays of sunshine. A ripe banana, a fresh highlighter, sweet like pineapples, tart like lemons, you could lose her in a field of dandelions. One drop of her coloring could turn plain buttercream frosting into the sweetest Easter cake. But one drop of another color could spoil her brightness. Leave her out in the heat too long and her banana peel would start to rot. The tip of her highlighter blackens with wear. The prickling of her pineapple skin sometimes leaves her impossible to open. And dandelions are nothing but pretty weeds." -Claudia

When we escape into a book, become absorbed into it, are magically transported, nothing becomes more visible, upon our return, than the edges that confine, the inescapable problems, the unabsorbable fact, the intransigent present. They become only so much more visible as under the x-ray—the indomitable ribcage, the recalcitrant tumor. Reading is thus primarily an acknowledgment that escape is fundamentally impossible. To read for escape, or stress relief, or relief of some other kind is, at bottom, rife with longing.

Family is not the only thing that matters. There are other things: Pachelbel’s Canon in D matters, and fresh-picked corn on the cob, and true friends, and the sound of the ocean, and the poems of William Carlos Williams, and the constellations in the sky, and random acts of kindness, and a garden on the day when all its flowers are at their peak. Fluffy pancakes matter and crisp clean sheets and the guitar riff in “Layla,” and the way clouds look when you are above them in an airplane. Preserving the coral reef matters, and the thirty-four paintings of Johannes Vermeer matter, and kissing matters. Whether or not you register for china, crystal, and silver does not matter. Whether or not you have a full set of Tiffany dessert forks on Thanksgiving does not matter. If you want to register for these things, by all means, go ahead. My Waterford pattern is Lismore, one of the oldest. I do remember one time when I had a harrowing day at the hospital, and Nick had a Rube Goldberg project due and needed my help, and Kevin was playing Quiet Riot at top decibel in his bedroom, and Margot was tying up the house phone, and you had been plunked by the babysitter in front of the TV for five hours, and I came home and took one of my Lismore goblets out of the cabinet. I wanted to smash it against the wall. But instead I filled it with cold white wine and for ten or so minutes I sat in the quiet of the formal living room all by myself and I drank the cold wine out of that beautiful glass crafted by some lovely Irishman, and I felt better. It was probably the wine, not the glass, but you get my meaning. I will remember the impressive heft of the glass in my hand, and the way the cut of the crystal caught the day’s last rays of sunlight, but I will not miss that glass the way I will miss the sound of the ocean, or the taste of fresh-picked corn.

(Ray): Bratty little sister extraordinaire