Stefanie > Stefanie's Quotes

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
― Mother Teresa

“You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper

“Once you had put the pieces back together, even though you may look intact, you were never quite the same as you'd been before the fall.”
― Jodi Picoult

“If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way”
― Martin Luther King Jr.

“In Islam, we want the first words a child hears to be a prayer.” It seemed absolutely fitting, given the miracle that every baby is.”
― Jodi Picoult, Small Great Things

“I wonder how long it takes before the polish given by nature gets worn off by nurture.”
― Jodi Picoult, Small Great Things

“Grief is love's souvenir. It's our proof that we once loved. Grief is the receipt we wave in the air that says to the world: Look! Love was once mine. I love well. Here is my proof that I paid the price.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“We know what the world wants from us. We know we must decide whether to stay small, quiet, and uncomplicated or allow ourselves to grow as big, loud, and complex as we were made to be. Every girl must decide whether to be true to herself or true to the world. Every girl must decide whether to settle for adoration or fight for love.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“Why does a woman’s neutral face mean anger, while a man’s neutral face means neutral?”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“This initial numbness and denial is shock and it is a gift. Shock is a grace period. It gives a woman time to gather what she needs around her, before the exhaustion and panic set in like a heavy snow. Shock allows her time to circle her people so that she can enter the hard work of grief, which will require all of her. Shock is the window offered after the fall so a woman can prepare herself for winter. Two”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“Maybe we need to look at them and say 'I see your pain. It's real. I feel it too. We can handle it. We can do hard things. Because we are warriors.”
― Glennon Doyle Melton, Love Warrior

“. . .you can't talk about death without celebrating life. How amid the devastation, many still manage to stay erect in a world that's slumping around them. How despite the bloodshed, some manage, heroically, not only to push on but also to push back. How in death there is love.”
― Alex Kotlowitz, An American Summer

“The shooting doesn't end. Nor does the grinding poverty. Or the deeply rooted segregation. Or the easy availability of guns. Or the shuttered schools and boarded-up homes. Or the tensions between police and residents. And yet each shooting is unlike the last, every exposed and bruised life exposed and bruised in its own way.”
― Alex Kotlowitz, An American Summer

“There are so many . . . who carry the violence, who keep moving forward enshrouded in its aftermath. Yet there doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency, especially among the rest of us.”
― Alex Kotlowitz, An American Summer

“In a nation that likes to see itself as forgiving, we are mulishly unforgiving of those who have committed a felony...”
― Alex Kotlowitz, An American Summer

“This is grief. You feel ripped in half. Half of you wanting to retreat, to disappear, to find a place where no one asks questions. And then there’s the part of you that wants to remember, has to remember because if you don't, not only will the day cease to exist but so will the reality of that moment.”
― Alex Kotlowitz, An American Summer

“People have a capacity to keep going even when their world has been shattered. We all long for connection, for affirmation that our lives matter.”
― Alex Kotlowitz, An American Summer

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“She was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“He looked like the love thoughts of women.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“When you see a man falling off a ladder above you, Edith believed, you don't envision your arms breaking. You just hold them out.”
― J. Ryan Stradal, The Lager Queen of Minnesota

“Money allows people to survive their mistakes, she knew from having observed that phenomenon from a distance, and people like her were fucked.”
― J. Ryan Stradal, The Lager Queen of Minnesota

“Her mom carefully selected her memories to reflect her established opinions, and it turned her mind into a bowl of lettuce she believed was a salad.”
― J. Ryan Stradal, The Lager Queen of Minnesota

“Her grief was a forest with no trails, and she couldn’t guess how long her heart would walk through it, as her body walked other places.”
― J. Ryan Stradal, The Lager Queen of Minnesota

“She was as calm as a small town on Christmas morning.”
― J. Ryan Stradal, The Lager Queen of Minnesota

“...but she wouldn’t leave the legacy she desired simply through prideful public displays, like some men did. There were advantages to a low profile. It was like a man to scratch his name on the banister of history, but Helen had come to believe that it was better to be the stairs.”
― J. Ryan Stradal, The Lager Queen of Minnesota

“It felt good to care about something enough to feel nervous.”
― J. Ryan Stradal, The Lager Queen of Minnesota

“For the first time, she just realized, she was making something for herself, and she hadn’t even given one dang thought as to who else might like it. She would never tell anyone, but that felt wonderful.”
― J. Ryan Stradal

“Due to my self-employment, I had to report my income every few months. Earning $50 extra could make my co-pay at day care go up by the same amount. Sometimes it meant losing my childcare grant altogether. There was no incentive or opportunity to save money. The system kept me locked down, scraping the bottom of the barrel, without a plan to climb out of it.”
― Stephanie Land, Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive