Wally Lamb Quotes

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.

I remember the odd sensation of living in the middle of that experience and feeling, simultaneously, like it was something happening at telescopic distance. Like something I was looking at through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

A life I didn't choose chose me.

You know what 'Dolores' means? It's Latin, means sadness. Our Lady of Sorrow. Why are you so sad?

I didn't respond to him. Couldn't speak at all. Couldn't look at his self-mutilation--not even the clean, bandaged version of it. Instead, I looked at my own rough, stained house painter's hand. They seemed more like puppets than hands. I had no feelings in it either.

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.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.

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

Getting a job scared her but she was determined not to shy away from risk. That’s what life’s all about. Climbing out onto the airplane wing and jumping off.

Her shut-eyed smile transformed itself into something else: the smile of someone brave and knowing, someone whose pain had made her wise.

Life's a shit sandwich, my ass. Life's a polka and don't you forget it!

Sometimes the closer we got to a situation, the less clear it looked.