Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Judith Viorst
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: February 2
Author
Journalist
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Singing
Songs
Present
Age
Song
Powerfully
True
Shaped
Past
Insight
Also
Keeps

More quotes by Judith Viorst

Image
Sun lighting a child's hair. A friend's embrace. Slow dancing in a safe and quiet place. The pleasures of an ordinary life.
Judith Viorst
Image
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.
Judith Viorst
Image
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.
Judith Viorst
Image
I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Judith Viorst
Image
Living with golden fantasies of an endlessly nurtured infancy can be a neurotic refusal to grow up.
Judith Viorst
Image
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.
Judith Viorst
Image
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.
Judith Viorst
Image
Our early lessons in love and our developmental history shape the expectations we bring into marriage.
Judith Viorst
Image
Adolescence involves our nutty-desperate-ecstatic-rash psychological efforts to come to terms with new bodies and outrageous urges.
Judith Viorst
Image
Brevity may be the soul of wit, but not when someone's saying I love you.
Judith Viorst
Image
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
Image
Losing is the price we pay for living. It is also the source of much of our growth and gain.
Judith Viorst
Image
Suffering makes you deep. Travel makes you broad. In case I get my pick, I'd rather travel.
Judith Viorst
Image
Late birds get worms while early birds get tired.
Judith Viorst
Image
Telling a lie is called wrong. Telling the truth is called right. Except when telling the truth is called bad manners and telling a lie is called polite.
Judith Viorst
Image
I had it together on Sunday. By Monday at noon it had cracked. On Tuesday debris Was descending on me. And by Wednesday no part was intact. On Thursday I picked up some pieces. On Friday I picked up the rest. By Saturday, late, It was almost set straight. And on Sunday the world was impressed With how well I had got it together.
Judith Viorst
Image
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
Image
No-fault guilt: This is when, instead of trying to figure out who's to blame, everyone pays.
Judith Viorst
Image
Our father presents an optional set of rhythms and responses for us to connect to. As a second home base, he makes it safer to roam. With him as an ally--a love--it is safer, too, to show that we're mad when we're mad at our mother. We can hate and not be abandoned, hate and still love.
Judith Viorst
Image
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