You are born into your family and your family is born into you. No returns. No exchanges. Elizabeth Berg More Quotes by Elizabeth Berg More Quotes From Elizabeth Berg Don't let your habits become handcuffs Elizabeth Berg handcuffs habit There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead. Elizabeth Berg quilts laughter happiness She sits down and puts her hand to her chest and rocks. Thinks of all she has lost and will lose. All she has had and will have. It seems to her that life is like gathering berries into an apron with a hole. Why do we keep on? Because the berries are beautiful, and we must eat to survive. We catch what we can. We walk past what we lose for the promise of more, just ahead. Elizabeth Berg beautiful past thinking People say you should give until it hurts. I say you should give until it stops hurting. Know what I mean? Elizabeth Berg hurt mean people I made cranberry sauce, and when it was done put it into a dark blue bowl for the beautiful contrast. I was thinking, doing this, about the old ways of gratitude: Indians thanking the deer they'd slain, grace before supper, kneeling before bed. I was thinking that gratitude is too much absent in our lives now, and we need it back, even if it only takes the form of acknowledging the blue of a bowl against the red of cranberries. Elizabeth Berg gratitude dark beautiful Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels. Elizabeth Berg funny-diet taste loss The seasons tell us, everything in organic life tells us, that there is no holding on; still, we try to do just that. Sometimes, though, we learn the kind of wisdom that celebrates the open hand. Elizabeth Berg kind trying hands You are always in my thoughts. When you were little, I knew your whereabouts at any given moment. Now that you are...off on your own, I still always know where you are, because I keep you in my heart. Elizabeth Berg moments heart littles Outside, the rain sometimes comes down so hard, we have to talk louder, and it feels like a miracle that the roof holds. It makes for a coziness and a gratefulness, too, that you have the choice to not be out in it. You can sit at the table and look out the window and not have to feel what you see. Elizabeth Berg miracle choices rain I will come back as a little breeze. You will feel me on your face, and you will know that I am still listening. So you can still talk to me. Elizabeth Berg listening littles life The things that brought me the most comfort now were too small to list. Raspberries in cream. Sparrows with cocked heads. Shadows of bare limbs making for sidewalk filigrees. Roses past their prime with their petals loose about them. The shouts of children at play in the neighborhood, Ginger Rogers on the black-and-white screen. Elizabeth Berg black-and-white children past The truth is, aging can be your realest opportunity to decide how best to live - and the best incentive for getting you to do just that. Elizabeth Berg incentives aging opportunity There is incredible value in being of service to others. I think if many of the people in therapy offices were dragged out to put their finger in a dike, take up their place in a working line, they would be relieved of terrible burdens. Elizabeth Berg office people thinking I hoped we never had to realize all the opportunities we missed in this life. Elizabeth Berg this-life realizing opportunity Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked. Elizabeth Berg serendipity intention sometimes It is such a terrifying thing to see a man cry. Elizabeth Berg cry men I felt myself trapped in line for a ride I was not nearly ready for, looking back but moving forward in the only direction I could go. Elizabeth Berg ready lines moving There are some things you never say good-bye to Elizabeth Berg good-bye saying-good-bye bye If I were to draw on a paper what gym does for me, I would make one dot and then I would erase it. Elizabeth Berg gym-class teenager inspirational I think one of the reasons we have children is to believe everything all over again. And I'm not talking Santa, here, either. Elizabeth Berg believe children thinking
