More Sentences that Speak to Me

For most of my teen years, I felt like the only fruit ripening on a dying tree.

My parents were frequently unreliable and my living situation was forever unstable. I swore I'd claw my way up and out, but there was no trusted person I could turn to for comfort or guidance. Assurances that I was not the only person struggling, or even promises that I would survive, were few and far between. So I sought solace in words. 

First music, then terrible poetry, then books - words were a lifeline those years. I found perseverance in 26 letters.

When I made it to college, I began writing down the sentences that spoke to me. 

It's been exactly five years since I shared the story of my quote book: a project I began in fall 1998 and have kept going for more than 25 years.

Last of the first quote book

 
So I felt it was time for an update.   

These notebooks (now there are two of them) are a timeline of more than half of my life. Each entry is a mirror of my interests, feelings, or struggles at the exact time I scribbled it with a black Pilot Rolling Ball pen - the only instrument fit to memorialize my favorite phrases. 

These words trace the contours of my life.

I can tell you that "a whole year and I forgot to find my enormous strength" is about the one-year anniversary of the COVID pandemic in 2021. "Remember later ago?" was something my daughter used to repeat when she was about 5 and trying to ask me to recall something, but didn't quite know how. "I love a good coup" was from my dear friend Kate, when I told her I accidentally-on-purpose shook up the management structure at my paid job and eliminated a consulting company. "There's no yawning on the dance floor" I said at my friend's 40th birthday party, because I was the one (already past 40) who was yawning. 

"It's delicious season!" was when my son - a notoriously picky eater - suddenly decided in 2022 (to my delight!) that he loved the cinnamon rolls I bake on Christmas morning. "Real men bite snakes back" was from Ian Austin just before a hike during my first writers camp, a place that would become an annual event with many new friends. "We made it to Friday. I hope you're not dead" is a text I got from Kate after we started congratulating each other on slogging through the roughest weeks. And "thank you for taking care of our girl" was something my high school English teacher, Mrs. Harding, who has witnessed my ups and downs for decades, said to my husband on our 2025 trip to Texas.

In the last five years, I began publishing my words in literary magazines and other websites, another endeavor that can be tracked in my quote book. "I don't care what your favorite color is. Tell me what song you played on repeat during a time you thought your whole world was ending" is the quote that inspired the essay "Tori and Me" in The Forge Literary Magazine. The quote "There comes a point when you no longer care if there's a light at the end of the tunnel or not. You're just sick of the tunnel," by Ranata Suzuki, inspired the piece "Only Way Out is Through," which the editors of Temple In A City felt many readers would connect with. And Delphine Gauthier-Georgakopoulos told me "You're someone's idol. That's quite something," after a writer wrote that their submission to her magazine, Raw Lit, was inspired by my essay "One Sentence."

Somewhere along the way, my words - my own sentences handcrafted from light and hurt and tiny victories - became inspiration and guidance to someone else. It's a beautiful circle, like the roundest O in "alone," now situated in the middle of other letters right where it should be, serving its purpose.  

Below are some gems from my quote book during the last five years. Feel free to take a few with you as you go. 

On parenthood

"Some kids require more fight -- for them, and with them." -my friend Kate

"You can feel like you're failing and still be love." -Rachel Macy Stafford

"I remain fascinated by where you go once you are a mother, and if you ever come back." -Rachel Cusk

"Nobody told me how parenting is like shepherding your own broken soul to peace." -Barlow Adams

"Your ability to be successful isn't measured by how easy it feels." -Honest Mom

"Motherhood is equal parts heart and ache." -Melissa Neeb

Out of the mouths of babes

"I love you 100 years tall." - daughter, age 5

"I thought we had six more weeks of Christmas because the chipmunk saw his shadow." -son, age 8

"What in the heck in the world?!" -son, age 8

"What if in heaven right now, they're singing to all the moms, including yours?" -son, age 9, on Mother's Day

"When all is lost, take a nap." -daughter, age 8

"Snack is my favorite food." -daughter, age 9

"I'm not built for stamina. I'm built for comfort." -son, age 12

On perseverance

"I am unstoppable-ish." 

"Today I am going to give it my some."

"Ever storm runs out of rain." -Maya Angelou

"Growing might feel like breaking at first."

"There's a lot going on here. Make sure you miss some of it." 

"Be brave enough to suck at something new." 

"Bless the daughter raised by a voice in her head." -Warsan Shire

"God, God, what do I do after all this survival?" -Traci Brimhall

"I am tired.
 I would like to be a mountain, a tree, a stone." -Susan Sontag

"No one else else can decide what your tough looks like." -Clementine von Radies

"What doesn't kill you only makes your sweet-tooth stronger." -Barlow Adams

"Acceptance is a small, quiet room." -Cheryl Strayed

"When you're in the shit up to your neck, there's nothing left to do but sing." -Samuel Beckett

"A great person has two hearts: one bleeds and the other forbears." -Kahlil Gibran

"There are times you must speak, not because you are going to change the opposing side, but because if you do not speak, they have changed you." -Andrea Junker

On life

"If you suffered in life and want other people to suffer as you did because 'you turned out fine,' you did not in fact turn out fine." 

"It's important to know when to stop arguing with people and simply let them be wrong." 

"You gain control of your life when you seek satisfaction, not validation." 

"Until it's my turn, I will keep clapping for others." 

"Feck perfuction."

"I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky." -Sharon Olds

"Big accomplishments don't always equal having a big impact." -my friend Natalie

"Your purpose in life is not one thing. It's a million small things and the ripple effect they cause." -@carpedeann

"If you're not failing then you're not aiming high enough." -Woody Allen

"Sometimes the most important thing in a day is the rest between two deep breaths." -Etty Hillesum

"The question is not who influences you, but which people give you courage." -Hilary Mantel

"It's important to make the distinction between what feeds your ego versus what feeds your soul." -Kathy Fish

On writing

"I am three lines into starting over." -me

"Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences." -Sylvia Plath

"No one cares if you write, so you'd better." -Anne Lamott

"Erase everything you have written, but keep the notes in the margins." -Osip Mendelstam

"We tell ourselves stories in order to live." -Joan Didion

"Feel it all and tell the truth about it." -Glennon Doyle

"There are probably no stuck writers, just resting ones, and those who wait." -Hanif Kureishi

"The sentence ought to have the decency to finish itself." 

"A writer's job is to outlast doubt." -Christine Sneed

"Write like your family will never read it." -Tanya Zilinskas

"Every essay you write should unstitch a seam inside you." -Paul Crenshaw

"Hit the keyboard like it owes you money." -Gabino Iglasias

"Sometimes writing is just rubbing two words together long enough to start a fire." -Gillian Marchenko

"Scream into the void, and add it to your word count." 

"You know metaphoring is my favorite type of exercise." -Megan Cannella

"I no longer believe art can save the world, but I still believe it can save me." -John from Stanchion

"All you can do is put one word in front of the other." -Casey Stegman

Beauties

"If you cannot have a home, become a song." -Joseph Fasano

"Tell the world I'd hoped to see it with you." -Kristina Mahr

"We are all just stars that have people names." -Nikita Gill

"Pretend this is a time of miracles and we believe in them."

"We both know plenty is never enough." -Emily Myles

"If it's darkness we're having, let it be extravagant." -Jane Kenyon

"When I'm caught between a rock and a hard place, let me be water." -John Roedel

"Today I am an unsolvable equation." -Matt Kendrick

"Last night I dreamed grief was an unlit room I had to clean." -Todd Dillard

Funnies

"We're all getting idioter." 

"That's un-lol." -my friend Celia

"The dog has proven unreliable in a leadership position." -my husband

"All I am asking for is better quality disingenuousness." 

"It's not a real holiday until someone cries." 

"This is not how I envisioned my midlife crisis at all."

"We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy." 

"Who needs rhetorical questions?"

"It is of critical importance that we amass a stockpile of hurrahs." -Angela Townsend

"That's a quote from literature. And by literature, I mean a comic book." -my husband

"I live an all-caps life." -Libby Cudmore at writers camp 2025

"Thus and forthwithly, such and so on." -my friend Celia

Self-quotes

"I don't think I've ever painted the town red. Pink, maybe, once." -me

"I'm in charge of terrible stories well told." -me

"It's not drinking alone if there are fireflies." -me

"I couldn't sleep. My tired is on the inside, not the outside." -me

"My superpower is turning memories into (essay) submissions." -me

On the end

"And the world spins madly on." -The Weepies