Quotes by Elizabeth Berg

There is love in holding and there is love in letting go.

There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my childrens rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead.

Just one look and then I knew that all I longed for long ago was you

For all its problems and difficulties, life is mostly a wonderful experience, and it is up to each person to make the most of each day. I hope you are successful in your life, but look to the heavens and the earth and especially to other people to find your real wealth. Wherever I am, wherever you go, know that my love goes with you.

I will be so glad for you to hear not the sounds of gunfire but the sounds of church bells, and of people working in peace.

There I was, waiting, afraid I’d never experience the kind of joy yet to come, but hoping for it just the same.

How are poets able to unzip what they see around them, calling forth a truer essence from behind a common fact? Why, reading a verse about a pear, do you see past the fruit in so transcendent a way?

When Suzie introduced Helen, she told the audience that one of the best things about books is that they are an interactive art form: that while the author may describe in some detail how a character looks, it is the readers imagination that completes the image, making it his or her own. Thats why we so often dont like movies made from books, right? Suzie said. We dont like someone elses interpretation of what we see so clearly. She talked, too, about how books educate and inspire, and how they soothe the soul-like comfort food without the calories, she said. She talked about the tactile joys of reading, the feel of a page beneath ones fingers; the elegance of typeface on a page. She talked about how people complain that they dont have time to read, and reminded them that if they gave up half an hour of television a day in favor of reading, they could finish twenty-five books a year. Books dont take time away from us, she said. They give it back. In this age of abstraction, of multitasking, of speed for speeds sake, they reintroduce us to the elegance-and the relief!-of real, tick-tock time.

And so, what of it all? What of me and my passions and personas, my great loves and failures of love, my writing, my politics? What of the clanging opinions, the endless queries as to the whys and wherefores of how I chose to conduct myself? In the end, there is but one answer to every question, whether it is spit at me or made as gentlest inquiry: I was I.

There are moments when we think nature happens just for us, and there are other moments when the ridiculousness of that notion is revealed.

You dont do so well with marriage. I dont think youve begun to realize all there is for you to love. And I know you better than anyone & heres what I know about you: You have so much love to give! But I feel like youre all the time digging in the tomato bin, saying, Where are the apples?

You are born into your family and your family is born into you. No returns. No exchanges.

I also think you should take care of yourself. You can crack up a little when these things go on for so long. Youve got to bring a healthy self in here. That will help him most. He needs to feel your strength. And you need to do what you have to keep it.

It is such a terrifying thing to see a man cry.

The things that brought me the most comfort now were too small to list. Raspberries in cream. Sparrows with cocked heads. Shadows of bare limbs making for sidewalk filigrees. Roses past their prime with their petals loose about them. The shouts of children at play in the neighborhood, Ginger Rogers on the black-and-white screen.

You are always in my thoughts. When you were little, I knew your whereabouts at any given moment. Now that you are...off on your own, I still always know where you are, because I keep you in my heart.

I dont hold Travis anymore, of course- not to read to him, or for any other reason, either. I wish Id known that the last time was going to be the last time.

I just want to say one thing. If I ever write a novel again, its going to be in defense of weak women, inept and codependent women. Im going to talk about all the great movies and songs and poetry that focus on such women. Im going to toast Blanche DuBois. Im going to celebrate women who arent afraid to show their need and their vulnerabilities. To be honest about how hard it can be to plow your way through a life that offers no guarantees about anything. Im going to get on my metaphorical knees and thank women who fall apart, who cry and carry on and wail and wring their hands because you know what, Midge? We all need to cry. Thank God for women who can articulate their vulnerabilities and express what probably a lot of other people want to say and feel they cant. Those peoples stronghold against falling apart themselves is the disdain they feel for women who do it for them. Strong. Im starting to think thats as much a party line as anything else ever handed to women for their assigned roles. When do we get respect for our differences from men? Our strength is our weakness. Our ability to feel is our humanity. You know what? Ill bet if you talk to a hundred strong women, 99 of them would say Im sick of being strong. I would like to be cared for. I would like someone else to make the goddamn decisions, Im sick of making decisions. I know this one woman whos a beacon of strength. A single mother who can do everything - even more than you, Midge. I ran into her not long ago and we went and got a coffee and you know what she told me? She told me that when she goes out to dinner with her guy, she asks him to order everything for her. Every single thing, drink to dessert. Because she just wants to unhitch. All of us dependent, weak women have the courage to do all the time what she can only do in a restaurant.

I cried until my eyes swelled shut, and then I slept, a black, dreamless sleep from which I awoke amazingly refreshed, at least until I remembered.

I was downstairs, reading. Now? I strained to see her face. She was smiling, it appeared.Yes, now, she said. Its nice, sometimes, to read in the middle of the night. The sky is so dark and soft-looking outside the window, all the stars out. You have just on light on, you know, and it seems to pour onto the page. Makes the book seem better. You are this little island, just up alone with a book. And you heard the night sounds of the house...Its so interesting to me, that sound. Time. The measure of it.