Judith Viorst Quotes

“Some days are like that. Even in Australia.”

Australia Children's Literature Children Literature Classic Book

“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.”

Trying Hard Age Lasts Girl Heard Aging Hips Thirty Nineteen Barbara Streisand Last Dance Barbara Streisand

Book:It's hard to be hip over thirty and other tragedies of married life

Source: It's hard to be hip over thirty and other tragedies of married life

“Love is the same as like except you feel sexier.”

Love Feels Love Is Best Love Short Love Humorous Love

Book:Love and Guilt and the Meaning of Life, Etc.

Source: Love and Guilt and the Meaning of Life, Etc.

“I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”

Has Beens Mother Mom Terrible My Mom Horrible Bad Day Happy Mothers Day Best Mother Children Book Mom Knows Best Writing Children's Books Good And Bad Days Classic Book

Author:Judith Viorst

“Growing up means letting go of the dearest megalomaniacal dreams of our childhood. Growing up means knowing they can't be fulfilled. Growing up means gaining the wisdom and the skills to get what we want within the limitations imposed by reality - a reality which consists of diminished powers, restricted freedoms and, with the people we love, imperfect connections.”

People Want Mean Dream Reality Growing Up Knowing Growing Childhood Skills Letting Go Connections Our Children Aging Limitation Imperfect Fulfilled

Author:Judith Viorst

“Friends broaden our horizons. They serve as new models with whom we can identify. They allow us to be ourselves-and accept us that way. They enhance our self-esteem because they think we're okay, because we matter to them. And because they matter to us-for various reasons, at various levels of intensity-they enrich the quality of our emotional life.”

Thinking Way Self Matter Reason Friendship Levels Quality Accepting Self Esteem Emotional Models Okay Various Esteem Horizon Intensity Emotional Life

Author:Judith Viorst

“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.”

Needs Long Self Seems Mother Forever Risk Standing Remains Yearning Urgent Parting Initiate Standing Alone

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“For some it takes a lifetime to find true love, But for the lucky ones a lifetime is merely enough to share the love they've found.”

Enough Found Share Lucky Lifetime Greatest Love Finding True Love

Author:Judith Viorst

“Recognize joy when it arrives in the plain brown wrappings of everyday life.”

Life Joy Everyday Brown Everyday Life Wrapping

Author:Judith Viorst

“Love is when you realize that he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford - but you'll take him anyway.”

Realizing Love Is Smart Sexy Infatuation Athletic Jimmy Woody Kissinger Henry Kissinger Cool Love

Author:Judith Viorst

“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.”

Ifs Giving Trying Children Sometimes Hard Giving Up Connections Our Children Imperfect

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“I don't intend to stop showing a little cleavage. Nor do I intend to stop flashing a little thigh.”

Littles Age Thighs Cleavage

Book:Suddenly Sixty and Other Shocks of Later Life

Source: Suddenly Sixty and Other Shocks of Later Life

“Passionate investment leaves us vulnerable to loss. And sometimes, no matter how clever we are, we must lose.”

Sometimes Matter Loses Loss Investment Passionate Clever Vulnerable

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“Absence makes the heart grow frozen, not fonder.”

Heart Grows Absence Frozen Absence Makes The Heart

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“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.”

People Ifs Feels May Fantasy Violence Guilty Frightened Ambitious

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“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.”

Needs Self Stuff Parent Our Lives Fronts Function Mirrors Remarkable Admiration Exhibits Groove

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“Our daily existence requires both closeness and distance, the wholeness of self, the wholeness of intimacy.”

Self Existence Distance Intimacy Wholeness Closeness

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“We begin life with loss. We are cast from the womb without an apartment, a charge plate, a job or a car. We are sucking, sobbing, clinging, helpless babies.”

Jobs Loss Car Baby Casts Plates Apartment Helpless Womb Clinging Sobbing

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“Our mother gives us our earliest lessons in love- and its partner, hate. Our father-our "second other"-elaborates on them.”

Giving Mother Hate Father Lessons Partners Our Father Love And Hate

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“For many men the denial of dependency on their mother is repeated in their subsequent relationships, sometimes by an absence of any sexual interest in women, sometimes by a pattern of loving and leaving them.”

Men Sometimes Mother Interest Leaving Patterns Absence Denial Dependency

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“Living with golden fantasies of an endlessly nurtured infancy can be a neurotic refusal to grow up.”

Grows Fantasy Growing Up Golden Refusal Neurotic Infancy Neurosis

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“There is a time to separate from our mother. But unless we are ready to separate-unless we are ready to leave her and be left-anything is better than separation.”

Mother Left Ready Separation Parting Ready To Leave

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“Sun lighting a child's hair. A friend's embrace. Slow dancing in a safe and quiet place. The pleasures of an ordinary life.”

Children Pleasure Sun Hair Quiet Safe Ordinary Embrace Dancing Lighting Ordinary Life Quiet Place

Book:Forever Fifty and Other Negotiations

Source: Forever Fifty and Other Negotiations

“We cannot love others as others unless we possess suficient self-love, a love we learn from being loved in infancy.”

Self Self Love Infancy Being Loved

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“Because we believe ourselves to be better parents than our parents, we expect to produce better children than they produced.”

Believe Children Parent Produce

Book:Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

Source: Necessary Losses: The Loves Illusions Dependencies and Impossible Ex

“I could be such a wonderful wife to another wife's husband.”

Wife Wonderful Husband

Book:How Did I Get to Be 40 & Other Atrocities

Source: How Did I Get to Be 40 & Other Atrocities

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