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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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Judith Viorst
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: February 2
Author
Journalist
Writer
Newark
New Jersey
Make
Parent
Brothers
Love
Help
Absolutes
Lost
Absolute
Rivalry
Helping
Havens
Sibling
Mother
Haven
Cope
Cannot
Loss
Divide
Dream
Brother
Sisters
Believe
Parents
Divides

More quotes by Judith Viorst

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Not listening is probably the commonest unkindness of married life, and one that creates - more devastatingly than an eternity of forgotten birthdays and misguided Christmas gifts - an atmosphere of not loving and not caring.
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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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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.
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Sun lighting a child's hair. A friend's embrace. Slow dancing in a safe and quiet place. The pleasures of an ordinary life.
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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.
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Late birds get worms while early birds get tired.
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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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Love is much nicer to be in than an automobile accident, a tight girdle, a higher tax bracket or a holding pattern over Philadelphia.
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Our mother gives us our earliest lessons in love- and its partner, hate. Our father-our second other-elaborates on them.
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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.
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Living with golden fantasies of an endlessly nurtured infancy can be a neurotic refusal to grow up.
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I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Judith Viorst
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I think I'll move to Australia.
Judith Viorst
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Suffering makes you deep. Travel makes you broad. In case I get my pick, I'd rather travel.
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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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No-fault guilt: This is when, instead of trying to figure out who's to blame, everyone pays.
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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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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.
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One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again.
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Losing is the price we pay for living. It is also the source of much of our growth and gain.
Judith Viorst