Shirley > Shirley's Quotes

“War is war,” she had told Natalia once. “It transforms human beings in unimaginable ways. But they are still human beings.”
― Roxanne Veletzos, The Girl They Left Behind

“Knowledge is power, the only power that can set you free.”
― Roxanne Veletzos, The Girl They Left Behind: A Novel

“In anguish and despair we release this child into the hands of God, with hope and faith that she may be saved.” Roxanne’s mother around the time of her adoption”
― Roxanne Veletzos, The Girl They Left Behind

“What is a life if without you, The only thing that gave it meaning? How to endure another day, Without your sweet breath upon my cheek, your eyes near? And in the end, when I am laid to rest, Without your hand upon my breast, What will my last thoughts be if not of you, My darling girl of long ago?”
― Roxanne Veletzos, The Girl They Left Behind

“grief is love made homeless,”
― Søren Sveistrup, The Chestnut Man

“You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”
― Anne Lamott

“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.”
― Anne Lamott

“For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.”
― Anne Lamott

“I do not understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”
― Anne Lamott

“Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.”
― Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith