Home > Work > How Stella Got Her Groove Back

How Stella Got Her Groove Back QUOTES

How Stella Got Her Groove Back QUOTES

1 " We pass a bunch of children playing in a small meadow which appears to be in the middle of nowhere and then a little girl with a backpack stops to stare at me like I'm a freak and I'm thinking what is she doing out here all by herself? Further up are more kids, shabbily dressed but clean and chasing each other around and some are digging something up from the ground and one is chasing a goat (I think it's a goat) and they are all laughing and suddenly it occurs to me that these children look pretty damn happy like they are having big fun and I'm certain they don't have Sega Genesis or Super Nintendo or five-hundred-dollar road bikes or Lightning Rollerblades at home and doesn't look like any crack houses or drive-bys or gang-banging going on around here and those kids look like they know how to amuse themselves, something we have forgotten, and I understand they are probably better off much better off than I thought. "

― Terry McMillan , How Stella Got Her Groove Back

2 " And you like doing all this ana-lyzing?'
'I used to, but the thrill is gone. Been gone. It's okay, though. It's a living.'
'And you studied many years to learn to do this?'
'Yep. New York University. Bachelor's and master's.' I don't even want to mention my M.F.A.
'Right.' He sighs as if he's putting this all together and then he looks me in the eye and says, 'Well , it seems to me that if one goes to college for so many years you'd at least end up working in some field that you derive a great deal of pleasure from. Don't you think?'
'Of course I do, Winston, but sometimes your attitude changes, your needs and values change, as you get older, and what used to excite you doesn't anymore.'
'So do you have this same attitude toward people when your attitude changes?'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean when you get bored or someone wears out their welcome do you treat them like you would your job? Do you just kind of settle in or do you look for a new one?'
Damn. "

― Terry McMillan , How Stella Got Her Groove Back

3 " I used to lie on his bed for an hour before bedtime or on a Saturday afternoon and read to him and then when he graduated to books with chapters sometimes he read. I'd look over at him, at his entire body, which appeared to have grown in the last few minutes; his lips moved and his eyes danced and darted across the page and I'd think: my son can read; he can comprehend things, he is making discoveries and he will soon have even more opinions about the world. "

― Terry McMillan , How Stella Got Her Groove Back

4 " It's kind of getting on my nerves if you want the truth, listening to her go on and on about how she can't believe she's fallen in love with this young man from Jamaica that she met on vacation, but her problem is that she is afraid of marriage because of what she's seen it do to love, how much you actually lose, for instance, like spontaneity: everything seems to have to be planned out in advance, and she does not always want to know what is going to happen next; and then how about passion: it gets pushed out of the way or maybe even shoved over and down to the bottom of the list of needs to that list of wants and is now considered superfluous, and where there used to be joy and laughter and warm smiles all of a sudden they cross over the picket line and everybody's pissed about something stressed out every day and so she feels that marriage is just so misrepresented, so overrated and not at all redeeming and plus it changes people and she does not want to be changed. "

― Terry McMillan , How Stella Got Her Groove Back