Home > Author > Joyce Maynard
41 " Every night, as we sat down together at the table, I still took Jim's hand and closed my eyes before we lifted our forks, our silent prayer.""There was no need to ask what we prayed for, though I would add three words to the end of it.""Remember this moment. "
― Joyce Maynard , The Best of Us
42 " They seemed to arrive at some form of friendship. Maybe they were like a couple of weary soldiers who went through a war together, side by side in the trenches, and having no inclination to relive the old battles found a certain comfort in the simple knowledge that they'd been young together and present at the same terrible moments of bloodshed. Even though, in their case the injury sustained there was my mother's t the hands of my father. "
― Joyce Maynard , After Her
43 " Some family's boat capsized at Lake Winnipesaukee the day before and now they were looking for the father's body. "
― Joyce Maynard , Labor Day
44 " the idea of having for one’s partner a person whose presence in the room transformed it for you—someone who felt that way about you—seemed the only thing worth pursuing. If you couldn’t have that, you’d do better on your own. Before "
― Joyce Maynard , Under the Influence
45 " By now I had lived half my life without Ray Dickerson, and it was not even Ray I missed. It was the young woman I had been when I loved him. She had disappeared. I missed the way the world had seemed to me then, the richness of the possibilities, the hunger I had felt, the capacity for longing. I had inhabited a wild and beautiful country once, one that I could never find my way back to. I had spoken a language no longer known to me. Somewhere on the planet, music was playing that my ears could not hear. "
― Joyce Maynard , The Good Daughters
46 " He himself did not eat. I had been hungry, but sitting there now, at the table with the two of them, it felt as crude to chew or swallow as it would have to munch on popcorn at a baby’s christening, or lick an ice-cream cone while your friend told you his dog died. I shouldn’t be here was how I felt. "
47 " Ihre Schuhe - ihre Tanzschuhe - lagen unter dem Tisch, und ihre Haare wirkten feucht - vielleicht von Tanzen, vielleicht aber auch vom Leben. "
48 " I love him,” Patty said. “But our dad is a loser. "
49 " Carla always says, "I don't like risks." In Greg's opinion, there's no way to avoid them. It's just a matter of whether you choose dangerous action or dangerous inaction. "
― Joyce Maynard , Baby Love
50 " She never gave up adoring our father, but he ceased to be, for her, the larger-than-life hero I continued to make him into. For Patty, he was more like a deeply lovable spaniel who keeps peeing on the rug and chewing on the upholstery, no matter how many times you tell him not to. "
51 " your eyes will be drawn to one small odd thing among all the thousands of others—the thing that calls to you, and suddenly, out of everything else your eyes are taking in and disregarding, they’ll focus on this one spot where something doesn’t make sense, or maybe it spells danger, or it just reminds you of a time and place different from this one. And you can’t look away. "
52 " Children had to know pain or how would they ever know what to do when they encountered it. Trouble would come no matter what. The best you could do was to raise your children in such a way that when trouble found them, as it would, they'd be able to survive it. Teach your children well. "
― Joyce Maynard , Count the Ways
53 " missing a crucial layer of skin other people had that allowed them to get through the day when he could not. "
54 " (Drama: an addiction of mine, maybe. To look at my history, at least, you would have had to consider that possibility.) "
55 " Those fourteen months had shaken me to my core, to the point where I no longer knew anything for sure except that parents should not look to their children to meet their needs. You don't adopt a child because you need more love in your life. You had better have the love part figured out already. "
56 " Where was the drama in happiness? If there was no trouble present, what kept the story alive? "
57 " Not until we learned of his illness, and we walked the path of that terrible struggle together, did I understand what it meant to be a couple - to be a true partner and to have one. I learned the full meaning of marriage only as mine was drawing to a close. I discovered what love was as mine departed the world. This is our story. "
58 " But it has been my way—as a woman, but also as a writer—to speak of the kinds of human experience so many of us are taught to believe we should keep hidden. I am speaking here of those so-called “shameful” emotions like envy, anger, self-pity, vanity, pride—the moments I believe all of us experience in which we display our least heroic but possibly most human selves. Over my many years as a writer, I "
59 " This was the terrible part of being a parent. The more you loved, the more you had to lose. It might as well be your own heart the pitcher was firing off toward the plate, hovering out in midair, ready for some bat to smash into it. Once you had a child you were never safe again. "
60 " You had to let your children venture out in the world. You couldn’t always find the Barbie shoe. Children had to know pain, or how would they ever know what to do when they encountered it? Trouble would come, no matter what. The best you could do was to raise your children in such a way that when trouble found them—as it would—they’d be able to survive it. Teach your children well. "