It's hard to know which made me more aware of the impossibility of protecting children - having a child die or having had two live. Elizabeth McCracken More Quotes by Elizabeth McCracken More Quotes From Elizabeth McCracken Grief lasts longer than sympathy, which is one of the tragedies of the grieving. Elizabeth McCracken grief tragedy grieving The cure for unhappiness is happiness, Elizabeth McCracken cures unhappiness care It's a happy life, but someone is missing. It's a happy life, and someone is missing. Elizabeth McCracken miscarriage missing happy-life You can't out-travel sadness. I travel not to get away from my troubles but to see how they look in front of famous buildings Elizabeth McCracken sadness trouble looks The idea of a library full of books, the books full of knowledge, fills me with fear and love and courage and endless wonder. Elizabeth McCracken library book ideas Library books were, I suddenly realized, promiscuous, ready to lie down in the arms of anyone who asked. Not like bookstore books, which married their purchasers, or were brokered for marriages to others. Elizabeth McCracken library book lying I believe marriage is a spectator sport. Elizabeth McCracken marriage sports believe A Lucky Child is an extraordinary story, simply and beautifully told. Heartbreaking and thrilling, it examines what it means to be human, in every good and awful sense. Perhaps most amazingly of all, Thomas Buergenthal remembers and renders the small mysteries and grand passions of childhood, even a childhood lived under the most horrific circumstances. Elizabeth McCracken passion mean children Despite popular theories, I believe people fall in love based not on good looks or fate but on knowledge. Either they are amazed by something a beloved knows that they themselves do not know; or they discover a common rare knowledge; or they can supply knowledge to someone who's lacking. Hasn't everyone found a strange ignorance in someone beguiling? . . .Nowadays, trendy librarians, wanting to be important, say, Knowledge is power. I know better. Knowledge is love. Elizabeth McCracken falling-in-love ignorance believe There are writers who can show you the excellence of their brains and writers who show you the depths of their souls: I don't know any writer who does both at the same time as brilliantly as Roxane Gay. Elizabeth McCracken gay soul brain Librarian like Stewardess, Certified Public Accountant, Used Car Salesman is one of those occupations that people assume attract a certain deformed personality. Elizabeth McCracken car personality people truthfully, this is the fabric of all my fantasies: love shown not by a kiss or a wild look or a careful hand but by a willingness for research. i don’t dream of someone who understands me immediately, who seems to have known me my entire life, who says, i know me too. i want someone keen to learn my own strange organization, amazed at what’s revealed; someone who asks, and then what, and then what? Elizabeth McCracken kissing dream hands I had never wanted to be one of those girls in love with boys who would not have me. Unrequited love - plain desperate aboveboard boy-chasing - turned you into a salesperson, and what you were selling was something he didn't want, couldn't use, would never miss. Unrequited love was deciding to be useless, and I could never abide uselessness. Neither could James. He understood. In such situations, you do one of two things - you either walk away and deny yourself, or you do sneaky things to get what you need. You attend weddings, you go for walks. You say, yes. Yes, you're my best friend, too. Elizabeth McCracken unrequited-love girl boys For some people, history is simply what your wife looks good standing in front of. It’s what’s cast in bronze, or framed in sepia tones, or acted out with wax dummies and period furniture. It takes place in glass bubbles filled with water and chunks of plastic snow; it’s stamped on souvenir pencils and summarized in reprint newspapers. History nowadays is recorded in memorabilia. If you can’t purchase a shopping bag that alludes to something, people won’t believe it ever happened. Elizabeth McCracken shopping glasses believe After most deaths, I imagine, the awfulness lies in how everything’s changed….there’s a hole. It’s person-shaped and it follows you everywhere…. For us what was killing was how nothing had changed. We’d been waiting to be transformed, and now here we were, back in our old life. Elizabeth McCracken imagine waiting lying I come from food the way some people come from money. Food was the medium I grew up in, what we talked about, what shaped our days. Elizabeth McCracken cooking food people Engagements - they are like a prayer before eating, best quick. Elizabeth McCracken engagement eating prayer but you can't spend your whole life hoping people will ask you the right questions. you must learn to love and answer the questions they already ask. Elizabeth McCracken whole-life answers people Can I tell you something? It wasn't so bad. Not so bad at all right then, me scowling at the dirt, James in his bed, the way it always always was. Look, if that's all that happened, if his dying just meant that I would be waiting for him to say something instead of listening to him say something, it would have been fine. Elizabeth McCracken dying waiting listening All I can say is, it's a sort of kinship, as though there is a family tree of grief. On this branch, the lost children, on this the suicided parents, here the beloved mentally ill siblings. When something terrible happens, you discover all of the sudden that you have a new set of relatives, people with whom you can speak in the shorthand of cousins. Elizabeth McCracken cousin sibling children
