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When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the street, I always hope he's dead.

Judith Viorst

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Judith Viorst
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: February 2
Author
Journalist
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Women
Dinner
Must
Street
Always
Streets
Late
Dead
Either
Lying
Hope
Affair

More quotes by Judith Viorst

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If his mother was drowning and I was drowning and he had to choose one of us to save, He says he'd save me.
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[On writing her first poem at age eight:] An ode to my dead mother and father, who were both alive and pretty pissed off.
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We cannot love others as others unless we possess suficient self-love, a love we learn from being loved in infancy.
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We grow because the clamorous, permanent presence of our children forces us to put their needs before ours. We grow because our love for our children urges us to change as nothing else in our lives has the power to do. We grow (if we're willing to grow, that is: not every parent is willing) because being a parent helps us stop being a child.
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A normal adolescent is so restless and twitchy and awkward that he can mange to injure his knee--not playing soccer, not playing football--but by falling off his chair in the middle of French class.
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No-fault guilt: This is when, instead of trying to figure out who's to blame, everyone pays.
Judith Viorst
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We will have to give up the hope that, if we try hard, we somehow will always do right by our children. The connection is imperfect. We will sometimes do wrong.
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we love as soon as we learn to distinguish a separate 'you' and 'me.' Love is our attempt to assuage the terror and isolation of that separateness.
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Superstition is foolish, childish, primitive and irrational - but how much does it cost you to knock on wood?
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READ! Books can be as delicious as hot-fudge sundaes, as funny as clowns, as exciting as a baseball game that's tied in the 9th inning, and as beautiful as the best sunset you ever saw.
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We begin life with loss. We are cast from the womb without an apartment, a charge plate, a job or a car. We are sucking, sobbing, clinging, helpless babies.
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Suffering makes you deep. Travel makes you broad. In case I get my pick, I'd rather travel.
Judith Viorst
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I think I'll move to Australia.
Judith Viorst
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Lust is what keeps you wanting to do it even when you have no desire to be with each other. Love is what makes you want to be with each other even when you have no desire to do it.
Judith Viorst
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We have to divide mother love with our brothers and sisters. Our parents can help us cope with the loss of our dream of absolute love. But they cannot make us believe that we haven't lost it.
Judith Viorst
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It is true that the present is powerfully shaped by the past. But it is also true that ... insight at any age keeps us from singing the same sad songs again.
Judith Viorst
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Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces.
Judith Viorst
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My mom says I'm her sugarplum. My mom says I'm her lamb. My mom says I'm completely perfect Just the way I am. My mom says I'm a super-special wonderful terrific little guy. My mom just had another baby. Why?
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I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
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The need to become a separate self is as urgent as the yearning to merge forever. And as long as we, not our mother, initiate parting, and as long as our mother remains reliably there, it seems possible to risk, and even to revel in, standing alone.
Judith Viorst