We carry on. We have ourselves and we carry on- in spite of our losses and mistakes and women, I think, have more than most. We are good secret-keepers. We can tie weights to out guilt and passions, and hatred and deceitfulness, and let them sink down, so that you'd never know they existed at all. But we know. I can count all mine.
Susan FletcherI've heard fate talked of. It's not a word I use. I think we make our own choices. I think how we live our lives is our own doing, and we cannot fully hope on dreams and stars. But dreams and stars can guide us, perhaps. And the heart's voice is a strong one. Always is. Your heart's voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore it, for sometimes it says what we'd rather it did not - and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don't live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living it is not the true you.
Susan FletcherStories are thick with meanings. You can fall in love with a story for what you think it says, but you can't know for certain where it will lead your listeners. If you're telling a tale to teach children to be generous, they may fix instead on the part where your hero hides in an olive jar, then spend the whole next day fighting about who gets to try it first. People take what they need from the stories they hear. The tale is often wiser than the teller.
Susan FletcherPeople take what they need from the stories they hear. The tale is often wiser than the teller.
Susan FletcherBut maybe the best thing I learnt was this: that we cannot know a person's soul and nature until we've sat beside them, and talked.
Susan FletcherLove is as varied and unpredictable as the rain is: it comes in constant summer drizzles, or sudden, unforseen storms that make rivers burst their banks and Cornish fishing boats rock and spill and lose their crew in the Atlantic.
Susan FletcherImagine it. Use all your strength and imagine it exactly. And it will happen that way.
Susan FletcherWe all have our demons to deal with, Little Pigeon. It's when we cherish them - cradle them to our breasts and feed them, day after day-that's when they curdle our souls.
Susan FletcherMarjan. I have told him tales of good women and bad women, strong women and weak women, shy women and bold women, clever women and stupid women, honest women and women who betray. I'm hoping that, by living inside their skins while he hears their stories, he'll understand over time that women are not all this way or that way. I'm hoping he'll look at women as he does at men-that you must judge each of us on her own merits, and not condemn us or exalt us only because we belong to a particular sex.
Susan FletcherLove is blind, they say--but isn't it more that love makes us see too much? Isn't it more that love floods our brain with sights and sounds, so that everything looks bigger, brighter, more lovely than ever before?
Susan FletcherSometimes we have so much to say, we cannot say it. Sometimes it's best we do not say goodbyes.
Susan FletcherI believe the world is as we choose to view it. Simple as that. Our happiness is, in the end, up to us, and to no one else.
Susan FletcherKisses open doors, I've noticed. That one gesture can unlock secrets, ease open feelings. It can't be prevented--these kisses just are. It's how they work. They break into basements you never knew you had.
Susan FletcherWhich people take the time to care for their souls, these days? I reckon not many. But...hear this: I think that maybe in our lives - in our scrabbling for food, in the washing of our bodies and warming of them, in our small daily battles - we can forget our souls. We do not tend to them, as if they matter less. But I don't think they matter less.
Susan Fletcher