Nancy O'Dell Quotes

I think grief and fear are going to come to him suddenly. They'll be undiluted and words won't work. We're all going to get hit and won't know how to hit back. I wish I knew the answers, how to help myself and the people who will hurt all around me.

These days grief seems like walking on a frozen river; most of the time he feels safe enough, but there is always that danger that he will plunge through. Now he hears the ice creak beneath him, and so intense and panicking is the sensation that he has to stand for a moment, press his hands to his face and catch his breath.

I have always been terrified of the death of my parents. I never knew if I could count on myself. I never knew if that would send me over the edge.

When anything bad happens, my insecurities come flooding out.

Once you lose somebody so close to you, you become very overprotective.

In life, there's a lot that I'm afraid of. Death is always scary. My sister passed away. I'm not scared to die, so much as I was scared to not have her in my life, and it took a long time for me to reconcile that. There are fears everyday, and things that I'm afraid of. I fear everything, but I keep going.

I don't think anybody deals well with tragedy or grief, but maybe my characters are particularly bad at it. Which is why I love them.

I'm thirty-six years old and I've been married once and he left and I don't want to feel this way anymore. Like I can't be vulnerable. Can't relax. It's exhausting, always being on the defensive, keeping my guard up. I feel like Cuba.

People who have babies tell me I will know a love that is beyond anything I can imagine, and a joy that is indescribable. Love and joy? That sounds horrifying. I have no way of knowing whether I can handle either of those. I'm much better with need and fear. They are what ground me.

I lost my brother when I was 22. He was only 24. I was always the kind of person to live on the edge, but after that, it made me feel like I could really die. It can really happen. Before then, I never thought it could happen to me or my family.

Motherhood didn't make you stronger; it made you vulnerable and afraid of what death could steal from you.

If someone really wants to hurt you, they'll find a way whatever. I don't want to live my life worrying about it.

I think the idea of losing your hair is still very potent, emotional thing.

I went to a haunted house once, and I don't do well in situations like that, and I've lived my entire life not being scared or anything.

It's hard to sleep at night because I'm still wondering where my mother is.

I'm always crying. I get a lump in my throat when I see intimacy between parents and their children.

I have a husband and children, and it affects me deeply that somebody could be taken away in a second.

I'm a fountain of blood. In the shape of a girl.

After I lost my fiance, it seemed like it would be better to always be alone than to risk being hurt again.

I can't even say what my greatest fear is because I, I can't even imagine. Being without my family... I can't even say it because it makes me cry.

Two things scare me. The first is getting hurt. But that's not nearly as scary as the second, which is losing.

That might have a lot to do with it, but you know, I probably don't show fear, but I suffer from fear like everyone else.

I think everything is going to be devastatingly sad - when the phone rings, I know somebody in my family's been hurt, somebody's going to die. I'm sure a therapist would go, 'That's not a good way to live,' but every time it's not that bad thing, I'm so thankful and appreciative.

Most writers are vulnerable and insecure, and Kay Graham was more so than most.

One of the biggest things I learned was that it's OK to be nervous and admit that you're having a hard time.