Jane Smiley Quotes

I've had no contact with my daughter for years. That's her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don't want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.

Looking backward at what has been lost, I feel sad, then indifferent, and at last relieved.

I don't care about losses anymore.

What was past was past. I suppose that was the general attitude.

They're just memories now. Time to write them off.

I say good-bye to hope, but I also say good-bye to hope's disappointment.

His door is closed behind me. It's staying closed. He's letting me go. I think I've made myself very clear, but no ones stepping forward to stop me. A lot of you cared, just not enough. And that...that is what i needed to find out. And I did find out. And I'm sorry.

For the first time I was learning how much easier it was to leave than to stay behind and love.

If that person doesn't want to be in your life, just let him or her leave.

It's too late and it's too bad, don't think of me.

With my mom, when someone was gone, they were gone. She didn't waste another minute thinking about them, and neither should you.

No need to be sentimental to mourn the loss of Paradise.

Let them go, I tell myself. Say good-bye and forget them. I do my best, thinking of them one by one, releasing them like birds from the protective cages inside me, locking the doors against their return.

I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our eyes.

-….when things seem to have reached that stage, merely say “I won’t play any longer”, and take your departure; but if you stay, stop lamenting.

... sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.

He's got to let go of you sometime.

Hating someone is giving them too much, just leave them alone.

Life must go on; I forget just why.

Shouldn't letting go be painless if you've never learned how to hold on?

What i’m saying is, my friends, one ought to be able to let go. If a path does not please us, instead of insisting on going that specific way, of making our selfishness the guide, we ought to forsake. The books we cannot write, the films we cannot shoot, the projects we cannot develop, the jobs we cannot pursue and the people who no longer love us. Being able to let go, at times, is the most beautiful of all!

It was like that part of my life, was just gone. It was almost too easy, for something I once thought had meant everything.

So we'll just let things take their course, and never be sorry.

Everything ends, people move on, they don't look back. It's how they should be.

Letting go. Everyone talks about it like it's the easiest thing. Unfurl your fingers one by one until your hand is open.