Quotes by Deb Caletti

In the middle of the night I am awakened by a sound. I sit up abruptly in bed. I hear it again. Its music. Wait, it sounds like the ice cream man, in our house. Is this some kind of twisted nightmare? The flipping ice cream man, breaking in to chop us all up in our beds to the tune of Zippity Do Dah?... My heart slows. I remember. There is no psycho ice cream man here. It is just our new musical soap dispenser...

What came next wasnt exactly silence, because although it was quiet, a thousand things were being said. I hated that part about an unhappy household--that feeling of being perched and listening, the way an animal must feel at night in the dark, assessing danger.

You have ordinary moments and ordinary moments and more ordinary moments, and then, suddenly, there is something monumental right there. You have the past and future colliding in the present, your own personal Big Bang, and nothing will ever be the same.

Our memories and events in our lives are untidy things. We wish that we can file them away and shut the door, or wish the opposite - that they would stay forever.

You read all kinds of books and see all kinds of movies about the man who is obsessed and devoted, whose focus is a single solid beam, same as the lighthouse and that intense, too. It is Heathcliff with Catherine. It is a vampire with a passionate love stronger than death. We crave that kind of focus from someone else. Wed give anything to be that loved. But that focus is not some soul-deep pinnacle of perfect devotion - its only darkness and the tormented ghosts of darkness. Its strange, isnt it, to see a persons gaping emotional wounds, their gnawing needs, as our romance? We long for it, I dont know why, but when we have it, it is a knife at our throat on the banks of Greenlake. It is an unwanted power youd do anything to be rid of. A power that becomes the ultimate powerlessness.

Love doesnt seem to follow a plan; its not a series of steps. It can hit with the force of nature - an earthquake, a tidal wave, a storm of wild, relentless energy that is beyond your simple attempts at control.

You could try and understand people, you could read books and understand words and concepts and ideas, but you could never understand enough or have enough knowledge to keep away the surprises that both fate and human beings had in store.

Good can sit in the distance, just beyond your view, waiting, until you go toward it.

Usually, I set one foot in a library and I feel my own internal volume lower. A library is a physical equivalent of a sigh. Its the silence, sure, but its also the certainty of all those books, the way they stand side by side with their still, calm conviction. Its the reassurance of knowledge in the face of confusion.

In a world of insanity, nothing is sacred. Its an insane world, nothing is sacred.

Unconditional love is like a contry of two with no laws and no government. Which is all fine if everyone is peaceful and law abiding. In the wrong hands, though, you got looting and crime sprees, and let me tell you, the people who demand unconditional love are usually the ones who will rob and pillage and then blame you because you left your door unlocked.

I kept trying to talk myself out of my second thoughts when they were trying to help me. My advice? When it comes to relationships, second thoughts should be promoted.

Because what is more like love than the ocean? You can play in it, drown in it. It can be clear and bright enough to hurt your eyes, or covered in fog; hidden behind a curve of road, and then suddenly there in full glory. Its waves come like breaths, in and out, in and out, body stretched to forever in its possibilities, and yet its heart lies deep, not fully knowable, inconceivably majestic.

Flawed Human Parents + Shit Life Throws At You = Childhood That Builds Character.

True love, the good, beautiful, one-and-only kind, the kind between loving friends and family and partners who are mostly just trying hard to do their best, it manages to overlook some pieces of its story. It overlooks what he can’t give you or how she failed you or what mistakes he made when he was struggling. It stays steady at its center. It evolves, through drought and storm. It grows. It survives.

Its shocking the things we call love.

Most of our parents wanted the best for us, I knew, but we also wanted the best for them.

An untold story has a weight that can submerge you, sure as a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean. I learned that. This kind of story, this kind of things kept secrets -they have the power to keep your head in forever, and most of all for yourself.

Youve got to say what you mean and mean what you say...Doubt in your voice is an open door people will shove right through.

We should have the right to have someone leave when we want, to only allow those in who we want in. But the truth is, people can force their way into your life whenever they choose. If they want to remind you forevermore that they exist, they will. They can reappear in a card or call or a chance meeting, they can remember your birthday or the day you met with some innocuous small note. No matter how little they matter in your new life, they can insist on being seen and recognized and remembered.