Quotes by Wally Lamb

Here is a girl who is pretty in a quiet way. I bet shes had a very sad life.

You know what Dolores means? Its Latin, means sadness. Our Lady of Sorrow. Why are you so sad?

As my father talked, tears dripped down the side of his face like candle wax. The sight shocked me; until that moment, I had assumed men were as incapable of crying as they were of having babies.

[Writing about themselves] gives them wings, so that they can rise above the confounding maze of their lives and, from that perspective, begin to see the patterns and dead ends of their pasts, and a way out. Thats the funny thing about mazes; whats baffling on the ground begins to make sense when you can begin to rise above it, the better to understand your history and fix yourself.

People walk in the door because they need you to take care of them -- to feed them or fix them.

Too bad I didnt know you back then, I would have come and rescued you. Like he was Prince Charming or something. Which he is, in a way, because he rescued me from the simple, uncomplicated life I thought I liked until I realized how much I was missing. How lonely that life had been: going to work, going home, and watching TV, going places by myself on weekends.

A life I didnt choose chose me.

Change what you can, accept what you cant, and be smart enough to know the difference.

What if I don’t like adventure?Then cultivate a taste for it. Take a chance. That’s how you grow.

Sometimes the closer we got to a situation, the less clear it looked.

We are like water, aren’t we? We can be fluid, flexible when we have to be. But strong and destructive, too.” And something else, I think to myself. Like water, we mostly follow the path of least resistance.

I didnt respond to him. Couldnt speak at all. Couldnt look at his self-mutilation--not even the clean, bandaged version of it. Instead, I looked at my own rough, stained house painters hand. They seemed more like puppets than hands. I had no feelings in it either.

The seeker embarks on a journey to find what he wants and discovers, along the way, what he needs.

You can be two things if youre a woman, Dolores. Betty Crocker or a floozy. Just remember your place - even if it kills you.

I thought about how love was always the thing that did that - smashed into you, left you raw. The deeper you loved, the deeper it hurt.

But what are our stories if not the mirrors we hold up to our fears?

Change what you can, accept what you can’t, and be smart enough to know the difference

That melting pot stuff was always more about what this country wanted to believe about itself than the way people really felt.

Getting a job scared her but she was determined not to shy away from risk. That’s what life’s all about. Climbing out onto the airplane wing and jumping off.

Lifes a shit sandwich, my ass. Lifes a polka and dont you forget it!