Wally Lamb Quotes

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

A woman who surrenders her freedom need not surrender her dignity.

A fiction writer weaves a fabric of lies in hopes of revealing deeper human truths.

Love is like breathing, you take it in and let it out.

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

All the dead bolts, pulled shades and hidden knives in the world couldn't protect you from the truth.

Religion's just a well-oiled profit-driven denial of the randomness of it all.

- that books were mirrors, reflective in sometimes unpredictable ways.

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

So many bad things have happened to them that they can't trust the good things. They have to shove them away before someone can get it back.

When I asked my parents how the baby got inside Ma, they both laughed, and then Daddy told me they had made it with their bodies. I pictured them fully clothed, rubbing furiously against each other, like two sticks making fire.

My art comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable.

If you want your prayers answered, get up off your knees and do something about them.

I needed her to stop. Needed not to hear the pain in her voice-to see the way she was twisting the pocketbook strap. If she kept talking, she might break down and tell me everything.

A life I didn't choose chose me.

Is that what love is all about? Needing them to come back to you when they're away? To come home and keep you safe?

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

That time we separated was my idea. I thought, well, I'm fifty years old and there might be someone else out there. People waste their happiness - that's what makes me sad. Everyone's so scared to be happy.

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.

If I could just write it down in a piece of paper, then maybe she could get a decent night's sleep, eat a little of her dinner. Maybe she could have a minute's worth of peace.