Quotes by Elizabeth McCracken

Can I tell you something? It wasnt so bad. Not so bad at all right then, me scowling at the dirt, James in his bed, the way it always always was. Look, if thats all that happened, if his dying just meant that I would be waiting for him to say something instead of listening to him say something, it would have been fine.

Books remember all the things you cannot contain.

The idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me with fear and love and courage and endless wonder.

Books are a bad family - there are those you love, and those you are indifferent to; idiots and mad cousins who you would banish except others enjoy their company; wrongheaded but fascinating eccentrics and dreamy geniuses; orphaned grandchildren; and endless brothers-in-law simply taking up space who you wish you could send straight to hell. Except you cant, for the most part. You must house them and make them comfortable and worry about them when they go on trips and there is never enough room.

Library books were, I suddenly realized, promiscuous, ready to lie down in the arms of anyone who asked. Not like bookstore books, which married their purchasers, or were brokered for marriages to others.

Fire is a speed reader, which is why the ignorant burn books: fire races through pages, takes care of all the knowledge, and never bores you with a summary.

Whatever you have lost there are more of, just not yours.

I’m so sorry,” he said, because after Pamela died, he promised himself that if anyone told him the smallest, saddest story, he would answer, I’m so sorry. Meaning, Yes, that happened. You couldnt believe the people who believed that not mentioning sadness was a kind of magic that could stave off the very sadness you didnt mention – as though grief were the opposite of Rumpelstiltskin and materialized only at the sound of its own name.

All I can say is, its a sort of kinship, as though there is a family tree of grief. On this branch, the lost children, on this the suicided parents, here the beloved mentally ill siblings. When something terrible happens, you discover all of the sudden that you have a new set of relatives, people with whom you can speak in the shorthand of cousins.

Grief lasts longer than sympathy, which is one of the tragedies of the grieving.

Perhaps it goes without saying that I believe in the geographic cure. Of course you cant out-travel sadness. You will find it has smuggled itself along in your suitcase. It coats the camera lens, it flavors the local cuisine. In that different sunlight, it stands out, awkward, yours, honking in the brash vowels of your native tongue in otherwise quiet restaurants. You may even feel proud of its stubbornness as it follows you up the bell towers and monuments, as it pants in your ear while you take in the view. I travel not to get away from my troubles but to see how they look in front of famous buildings or on deserted beaches. I take them for walks. Sometimes I get them drunk. Back at home we generally understand each other better.

Heres what I think: when youre born, youre assigned a brain like youre assigned a desk, a nice desk, with plenty of pigeonholes and drawers and secret compartments. At the start, its empty, and then you spend your life filling it up. Youre the only one who understands the filing system, you amass some clutter, sure, but somehow it works: youre asked the capital of Oregon, and you say Salem; you want to remember your first-grade teachers name, and there it is, Miss Fox. Then suddenly youre old, and though everythings still in your brain, its crammed so tight that when you try to remember the name of the guy who does the upkeep on your lawn, your first childhood crush comes fluttering out, or the persistent smell of tomato soup in a certain Des Moines neighborhood.

My memories are not books. They are only stories that I have been over so many times in my head that I dont know from one day to the next whats remembered and whats made up. Like when you memorize a poem, and for one small unimportant part you supply your own words. The meanings the same, the meters identical. When you read the actual version you can never get it into your head that its right and youre wrong.

When I was a teenager in Boston, a man on the subway handed me a card printed with tiny pictures of hands spelling out the alphabet in sign language. I AM DEAF, said the card. You were supposed to give the man some money in exchange. I have thought of that card ever since, during difficult times, mine or someone elses; surely when tragedy has struck you dumb, you should be given a stack of cards that explain it for you. When Pudding died, I wanted my stack. I still want it. My first child was stillborn, it would say on the front. It remains the hardest thing for me to explain, even now, or maybe I mean especially now - now that his death feels like a non sequitur. My first child was stillborn. I want people to know but I dont want to say it aloud. People dont like to hear it but I think they might not mind reading it on a card.

Like all good mothers, she always knew the worst was going to happen and was disappointed and relieved when it finally did.

Do not trust an architect: he will always try to talk you into an atrium.

Humor reminds you, when youre flattened by sorrow, that youre still human.

You write the way you think about the world. My motto in times of trouble - and Im speaking of life, not writing - is no humor too black.

Short fiction is like low relief. And if your story has no humor in it, then youre trying to look at something in the pitch dark. With the light of humor, it throws what youre writing into relief so that you can actually see it.

There are two MFA programs here at the University of Texas, and I read on the jury of both of them. And its amazing to me how many really talented young writers seem to fear humor.