Being in love is better than being in jail, a dentist's chair, or a holding pattern over Philadelphia, but not if he doesn't love you back. Judith Viorst More Quotes by Judith Viorst More Quotes From Judith Viorst We can glut ourselves with how-to-raise children information . . . strive to become more mature and aware but none of this will spare us from the . . . inevitability that some of the time we are going to fail our children. Because there is a big gap between knowing and doing. Because mature, aware people are imperfect too. Or because some current event in our life may so absorb or depress us that when our children need us we cannot come through. Judith Viorst depressing knowing children Serious skeptics, true believers, and seekers of every stripe will want to read Mitch Horowitz's vibrant, probing, and richly researched account of the impact of the positive-thinking movement on every aspect of American life today. Filled with a cast of remarkable characters and many lively tales, One Simple Idea is a readable, responsible examination of the limits and possibilities of mind-power as a source of constructive transformation. Judith Viorst positive-thinking simple character Eventually we will learn that the loss of indivisible love is another of our necessary losses, that loving extends beyond the mother-child pair, that most of the love we receive in this world is love we will have to share--and that sharing begins at home, with our sibling rivals. Judith Viorst sibling mother children 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 brother mother dream Control cannot be called conscience until we are able to take it inside us and make it our own, until--in spite of the fact that the wrongs we have done or imagined will never be punished or known--we nonetheless feel that the clutch in the stomach, that chill upon the soul, that self-inflicted misery called guilt. Judith Viorst guilt soul self Adolescence involves our nutty-desperate-ecstatic-rash psychological efforts to come to terms with new bodies and outrageous urges. Judith Viorst desperate effort body 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 hate mother father 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. Judith Viorst atmosphere marriage caring If ambitious fantasies make people blush, and sexual fantasies make people blush and feel guilty, fantasies of violence and death may make people blush and feel guilty-and frightened too. Judith Viorst ambitious may people Absence makes the heart grow frozen, not fonder. Judith Viorst frozen absence heart Passionate investment leaves us vulnerable to loss. And sometimes, no matter how clever we are, we must lose. Judith Viorst passionate clever loss I don't intend to stop showing a little cleavage. Nor do I intend to stop flashing a little thigh. Judith Viorst thighs age littles 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 giving-up trying children 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 self mother long But it's hard to be hip over thirty when everyone else is nineteen, when the last dance we learned was the Lindy, and the last we heard, girls who looked like Barbara Streisand were trying to do something about it. Judith Viorst girl age trying Some days are like that. Even in Australia. Judith Viorst children-literature classic-book australia I think I'll move to Australia. Judith Viorst australia moving thinking 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. Judith Viorst drowning true-love mother There is a time in our life when we need to strut our stuff and groove on grandiosity, when we need to be viewed as remarkable and rare, when we need to exhibit ourself in front of a mirror that reflects our self-admiration, when we need a parent to function as that mirror. Judith Viorst parent mirrors self Our mother gives us our earliest lessons in love- and its partner, hate. Our father-our "second other"-elaborates on them. Judith Viorst hate mother father
