Quotes from We Are Water

Wally Lamb ·  561 pages

Rating: (44.2K votes)


“We are like water, aren’t we? We can be fluid, flexible when we have to be. But strong and destructive, too.” And something else, I think to myself. Like water, we mostly follow the path of least resistance.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“Maybe that's what love is. Having someone who guides you through different experiences, coaxes you to try news things but still makes you feel safe.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“a life we didn't choose, chose us”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“One thing I’ve learned in my program is that guilt is a wasted emotion, you know? Look back on the past but don’t stare.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“A life I didn't choose chose me.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water



“So maybe that’s what love means. Having the capacity to forgive the one who wronged you, no matter how deep the hurt was.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“That’s often the case, of course—that creation and madness begin to dance with each other.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“The “what-ifs”: they’ll do a number on you.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“Il destino mischia le carte, ma siamo noi a giocare la partita. Destiny shuffles the cards, but we are the ones who must play the game.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“Sometimes we want something to be true so badly that we convince ourselves that it is true.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water



“All I’m saying, Dad, is that I accept that I don’t know. But I have faith that my Lord and Savior does, so I’m putting myself in His hands. Humbling myself to a wisdom that’s above and beyond me and praying for His guidance.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“comforts the disturbed and disturbs the comfortable:”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“So maybe that’s what love means. Having the capacity to forgive the one who wronged you, no matter how deep the hurt was. At any rate, I’m glad she doesn’t know about the corpse that’s down there in that well. I’ve spared her that much.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“That coincidence is God’s way of staying invisible?”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“It’s as if the work on your canvas has a will of its own. When that happens, it can be quite exciting. But disturbing, too, when, as the painter, you are not in control of your painting.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water



“Of course, all of the coolest icons overdosed and died years ago, which is just as well. How depressing would it be to see a gray-haired Jimi Hendrix wearing a cardigan sweater and reminiscing about the soundtrack of the Summer of Love?”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“Change what you can, accept what you can't, and be smart enough to know the difference.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“This is where the pot is strongest now: at the place where it had been broken.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“Change what you can, accept what you can’t, and be smart enough to know the difference. Viveca comes downstairs first and heads into the”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“This was a career, not an emotional disorder.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water



“Motherless children have a hard time when the mother is gone. That”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“Motherless children have a hard time when the mother is gone.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“and yet she continues to skip rope in my mind and on my canvases, raising her dark, hopeful face to the sky, innocent of the depth of people’s cruelty toward “the other”—those who, for whatever reason, must swim against the tide instead of letting it carry them. . . .”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“It lands halfway down the skirt. The red wine against the green silk makes it look like Gaia, the primordial earth mother, is having her period. I know I should feel guilty. Contrite. I should be rushing to the fridge and grabbing a bottle of club soda before the stain sets, or rushing Viveca’s dress down the street to that dry cleaning place. But I’m not contrite. I’m a little giddy, in fact. I pour another mug of wine and throw it at the other three dresses. In some places the wine seeps in and it dribbles down to the hems in others. I do it again: pour, splash. I feel like Jackson Pollock must have felt, except I’m not dribbling paint; I’m staining beauty with blood.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“I understand there was some controversy about the coroner’s ruling concerning Josephus Jones’s”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water



“Too bad I didn't know you back then, I would have come and rescued you." Like he was Prince Charming or something. Which he is, in a way, because he rescued me from the simple, uncomplicated life I thought I liked until I realized how much I was missing. How lonely that life had been: going to work, going home, and watching TV, going places by myself on weekends.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“If you want people to flock to art, lure them with pancakes.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“Maybe that’s what love is. Having someone who guides you through different experiences, coaxes you to try new things but still makes you feel safe.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


“When a painting I’m working on becomes my singular focus—when I am “in the zone,” as I’ve heard people put it—a trancelike state will sometimes overtake me.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from We Are Water


About the author

Wally Lamb
Born place: in Norwich, Connecticut, The United States
Born date October 17, 1950
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“Never be silent with persons you love and distrust," Mr. Carpenter had said once. "Silence betrays.”
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“Atheists have had to resort to wild speculations to give chance more of a chance.”
― Norman L. Geisler, quote from I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist


“Should a black woman carrying her "madam's" white baby travel in the "whites only" or the "nonwhites" section of the train? Or would a Japanese visitor who used a "whites only" public toilet be breaking the law? Or what was a bus conductor to do when he ordered a brown-skinned passanger to get off a whites-only bus and the passanger refused, insisting that he was a white man with a deep suntan?”
― John Carlin, quote from Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation


“Šta bi bilo kada bih ti sad rekao, bez glupiranja, da kroz ova vrata ulazimo u tajni svet u kojem niko ne može da nas vidi i takne, svet u kome ću te voleti više od samog života? Znam da nije palata. Možda je samo bedna baštenska šupa, ali je i šupa u kojoj želim da te obožavam i volim ne traćeći više ni sekund svog kratkog života u ovom zlokobnom svetu. Možda smešno zvuči, ali došla si u leto mog života. Ja nisam star, ali nisam više ni mlad, i poznajem sebe. Ti si jedina žena mog života, žena koje ću se setiti na samrti. (...) Benja je uze u zagrljaj i ona po njegovom pogledu i čvrstini njegovih usana nasluti da ozbiljno misli ono što je rekao, da je stvarno voli i da je ovaj trenutak, u njihovom intimnom svetu, jedan od onih svetih događaja koji se zbivaju jednom ili dvaput u životu, a nekome se nikada i ne dogode.”
― Simon Sebag Montefiore, quote from Sashenka


“Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark, and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on [E]arth. According to the United Nations' Human Development Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by life expectancy, adult literacy, per capita income, educational attainment, gender equality, homicide rate, and infant mortality. Insofar as there is a crime problem in Western Europe, it is largely the product of immigration. Seventy percent of the inmates of France's jails, for instance, are Muslim. The Muslims of Western Europe are generally not atheists. Conversely, the fifty nations now ranked lowest in terms of the United Nations' [H]uman [D]evelopment [I]ndex are unwaveringly religious.
Other analyses paint the same picture: the United States is unique among wealthy democracies in its level of religious adherence; it is also uniquely beleaguered by high rates of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, and infant mortality. The same comparison holds true within the United States itself: Southern and Midwestern states, characterized by the highest levels of religious literalism, are especially plagued by the above indicators of societal dysfunction, while the comparatively secular states of the Northeast conform to European norms.”
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