but you can't spend your whole life hoping people will ask you the right questions. you must learn to love and answer the questions they already ask.
Elizabeth McCrackenAll I can say is, it's a sort of kinship, as though there is a family tree of grief. On this branch, the lost children, on this the suicided parents, here the beloved mentally ill siblings. When something terrible happens, you discover all of the sudden that you have a new set of relatives, people with whom you can speak in the shorthand of cousins.
Elizabeth McCrackenGrief lasts longer than sympathy, which is one of the tragedies of the grieving.
Elizabeth McCrackentruthfully, this is the fabric of all my fantasies: love shown not by a kiss or a wild look or a careful hand but by a willingness for research. i donโt dream of someone who understands me immediately, who seems to have known me my entire life, who says, i know me too. i want someone keen to learn my own strange organization, amazed at whatโs revealed; someone who asks, and then what, and then what?
Elizabeth McCrackenEnough fine weather and money and a few memorable meals make any place desirable.
Elizabeth McCrackenAfter most deaths, I imagine, the awfulness lies in how everythingโs changedโฆ.thereโs a hole. Itโs person-shaped and it follows you everywhereโฆ. For us what was killing was how nothing had changed. Weโd been waiting to be transformed, and now here we were, back in our old life.
Elizabeth McCrackenLibrary books were, I suddenly realized, promiscuous, ready to lie down in the arms of anyone who asked. Not like bookstore books, which married their purchasers, or were brokered for marriages to others.
Elizabeth McCrackenThe idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me with fear and love and courage and endless wonder.
Elizabeth McCrackenCan I tell you something? It wasn't so bad. Not so bad at all right then, me scowling at the dirt, James in his bed, the way it always always was. Look, if that's all that happened, if his dying just meant that I would be waiting for him to say something instead of listening to him say something, it would have been fine.
Elizabeth McCrackenMy father was right: you could make anybody amazing just by insisting they were.
Elizabeth McCrackenAs for me, I believe that if there's a God - and I am as neutral on the subject as is possible - then the most basic proof of His existence is black humor. What else explains it, that odd, reliable comfort that billows up at the worst moments, like a beautiful sunset woven out of the smoke over a bombed city.
Elizabeth McCrackenA Lucky Child is an extraordinary story, simply and beautifully told. Heartbreaking and thrilling, it examines what it means to be human, in every good and awful sense. Perhaps most amazingly of all, Thomas Buergenthal remembers and renders the small mysteries and grand passions of childhood, even a childhood lived under the most horrific circumstances.
Elizabeth McCrackenFor some people, history is simply what your wife looks good standing in front of. Itโs whatโs cast in bronze, or framed in sepia tones, or acted out with wax dummies and period furniture. It takes place in glass bubbles filled with water and chunks of plastic snow; itโs stamped on souvenir pencils and summarized in reprint newspapers. History nowadays is recorded in memorabilia. If you canโt purchase a shopping bag that alludes to something, people wonโt believe it ever happened.
Elizabeth McCrackenDespite popular theories, I believe people fall in love based not on good looks or fate but on knowledge. Either they are amazed by something a beloved knows that they themselves do not know; or they discover a common rare knowledge; or they can supply knowledge to someone who's lacking. Hasn't everyone found a strange ignorance in someone beguiling? . . .Nowadays, trendy librarians, wanting to be important, say, Knowledge is power. I know better. Knowledge is love.
Elizabeth McCrackenYou can't out-travel sadness. I travel not to get away from my troubles but to see how they look in front of famous buildings
Elizabeth McCrackenLibrarian like Stewardess, Certified Public Accountant, Used Car Salesman is one of those occupations that people assume attract a certain deformed personality.
Elizabeth McCrackenUnrequited loveโplain desperate aboveboard boy-chasingโturned you into a salesperson, and what you were selling was something he didn't want, couldn't use, would never miss. Unrequited love was deciding to be useless, and I could never abide uselessness.
Elizabeth McCrackenIt's a happy life, but someone is missing. It's a happy life, and someone is missing.
Elizabeth McCrackenI had never wanted to be one of those girls in love with boys who would not have me. Unrequited love - plain desperate aboveboard boy-chasing - turned you into a salesperson, and what you were selling was something he didn't want, couldn't use, would never miss. Unrequited love was deciding to be useless, and I could never abide uselessness. Neither could James. He understood. In such situations, you do one of two things - you either walk away and deny yourself, or you do sneaky things to get what you need. You attend weddings, you go for walks. You say, yes. Yes, you're my best friend, too.
Elizabeth McCrackenI come from food the way some people come from money. Food was the medium I grew up in, what we talked about, what shaped our days.
Elizabeth McCrackenAnd while I was not an admirer of people in the specific, I liked them in the abstract. It is only the execution of the idea that disappoints.
Elizabeth McCrackenPeople think librarians are unromantic, unimaginative. This is not true. We are people whose dreams run in particular ways. Ask a mountain climber what he feels when he sees a mountain; a lion tamer what goes through his mind when he meets a new lion; a doctor confronted with a beautiful malfunctioning body. The idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me with fear and love and courage and endless wonder.
Elizabeth McCracken