Quotes from Blessings

Anna Quindlen ·  304 pages

Rating: (14.4K votes)


“Four A.M. and the darkness had a quality of inexorability and menace as though it would never lift, as though, without anyone noticing it, the dawn of the day before had been the beginning of the last light ever in the history of the world.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings


“Mrs. Blessing was surprised at how fluently she lied, much better than she’d done it years before, when it had been so much more important, at least to her. She realized that lying was easier than telling the truth because it had such nice smooth edges, not jagged with impossibility and inconvenience the way the truth so often was.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings


“She had filled her days mourning that shadow life, and it had no more meaning than the chattering of monkeys. Instead, these last few weeks, she had seen what might have been had she not felt perpetually done out of something better.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings


“Anyone familiar with the love affairs between men and women could have told them that theirs would soon be over.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings


“It was a kind of circular thing: to be the kind of person who would have taken Faith in, he had to be the kind of person who would take her back.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings



“He’d had a dog once, in that way he’d had everything in his childhood, ordinary but a lot less lasting.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings


“It was a puzzle to her, how eagerly she’d rushed into life when she was eighteen or twenty, and in what a desultory fashion it had dragged out ever since.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings


“The curse of having young people about the house was that they were always so redolent of possibility.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings


“He was quiet and thoughtful, letting her do all the talking until she would reach one of her acerbic pitches and he would murmur, "You don't really mean that." But he had never seemed put off.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings


“He realized that there was a point to that ungainly empty area between the human shoulder and chin: it was the perfect place to rest an infant.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings



“He couldn't remember at first where he was, just knew by the fragile fog of the summer light that it was early, that his alarm clock would sleep longer than he had.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings


“The girl was huddled against the door on her side now, all folded in upon herself like an old woman, or like a child who'd fallen asleep on a long journey; she heard the sounds of him as if they were musical notes, each distinct and clear, and her shoulders moved slightly beneath her shirt, and her hands were jammed between her knees.”
― Anna Quindlen, quote from Blessings


About the author

Anna Quindlen
Born place: in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, The United States
Born date July 8, 1952
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Popular quotes

“Lighting some fine incense and then lying down alone to sleep. Looking into a Chinese mirror that’s a little clouded.”
― Sei Shōnagon, quote from The Pillow Book


“She got tired of herself. She got tired of not being able to say what she wanted or do what she wanted or even want what she wanted.”
― Ann Brashares, quote from The Second Summer of the Sisterhood


“You never told me your name," he says, his voice so hauntingly familiar it causes a rush of heat to blanket my skin.
I sigh,staring blankly down the hall when I say, "Psycho Girl-Psycho Horseback Singing Girl..." I shrug. "I've heard it both ways."
He squints.His hand reaching for my shoulder,then falling away the instant he catches the look of reproach on my face.
"Look," I say,knowing I need to stop him before he can go any further.His kindness will only distract me at a time when I need to stay focused. "I've had a really bad day.And if my calculations are right,I have three hundred and eight more,give or take, before I get to graduate and get the heck out of this place. So,why don't you just call me whatever you want. Everyone else does.It's not like it matters..." My cheeks go hot,my eyes start to sting, and I know I'm rambling like a lunatic,but I cant seem to stop,can't seem to care.The world's most socially inept Seeker-that's me in a nutshell.
"Don't let them reduce you to that," he says,his gaze instense, his voice surprising me with its sincerity, its urgency. "Don't let them define how you see yourself,or your place here. And if you ever need someone to talk to,I'm not hard to find.I'm either in class, reading in the library,or eating lunch in the North hallway."
The second he says it,my gaze flies down the length of him.Slipping past a gray V-neck tee and dark denim jeans,not the least bit surprised when I land on the same heavy,black, thick-soled shoes I spied earlier.
Then before he can say anything more, I'm gone. Trying to ignore the comforting stream of kindness and love that swarms all around me.”
― Alyson Noel, quote from Fated


“As I recall, this word's use means somewhere there is a tree that is now a - a two-legger.

-Numair Salmalin”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Wolf-Speaker


“In the time it takes for her to walk from the bathhouse at the seawall of Fortune's Rocks, where she has left her boots and has discreetly pulled off her stockings, to the waterline along which the sea continually licks the pink and silver sand, she learns about desire. ”
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