Anna Quindlen Quotes

Love came in wounded and frantic ways to my dismaying family.

Much unhappiness has come to the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.

Even with me, there are so many things I have bottled up.

Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.

To be silent. In hopes of not offending, in hopes of being accepted. But what happened to people who never spoke, never raised their voices? Kept everything inside? Gamache knew what happened. Everything they swallowed, every word, thought, feeling rattled around inside, hollowing the person out. And into that chasm they stuffed their words, their rage.

The silence is the worst part of any fight, because it's made up of all the things we wish we could say, if only we had the guts.

When you try to avoid the pain, it creates greater pain.

I know what it's like to have someone coming home who looks at you not in the way they used to in the old days, and I've seen my own face contorted with sadness and rage in the mirror.

Family quarrels are bitter things. They don't go according to any rules. They're not like aches or wounds, they're more like splits in the skin that won't heal because there's not enough material.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

The neurotic is nailed to the cross of his fiction.

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.

I don't know a single person who doesn't regret the things that they did to hurt their parents, or the things they didn't say to them.

We can never flee the misery that is within us.

I wept not, so to stone within I grew.

People have so much pain inside them that they're not even aware of.

I suppose there's an anger in all of us. Some hidden rage that you keep at bay.

Mama had her little cough. Once or twice, some quiet sobbing, out of sight... Or the slamming of kitchen cupboard doors. That was her language.

I think that all the anger and cynicism comes from suppressing things that we always wanted.

I remember one day sitting at the pool and suddenly the tears were streaming down my cheeks. Why was I so unhappy? I had success. I had security. But it wasn't enough. I was exploding inside.

I wanted to cry because it took me so many years

The hardest thing in the world is to watch someone you love really not be able to get themselves together and really struggle on a level so bad when it seems and it appears that they have it all.

I don't think it would be very difficult for me to open the chapters of my life because there isn't much there.

Even people who aren't pleasant to deal with - it's often because they're unhappy, and something's still not resolved for them.

I was told not to cry as a kid.