Abigail Thomas Quotes

Here’s what I love about painting. It’s not about words or voice or tone or point of view or narrative arc (perish the thought); it’s about the way certain branches stick straight out from the trunks...

Here’s what I love about dogs. They aren’t careful not to disturb you. They don’t overthink. They jump on the bed or the sofa or the chair and plop down. They come and they go. I’m not sure they love...

Neurosis is for the young, who think they are made of time

Other people’s condiments are depressing.

Anger is a luxury. Anger wants answers, retribution, reason, something that makes sense. Anger wants a story, stories help us make sense out of everything. But while we scramble to help those who need...

He remembers what I forget and I remember what he forgets. It's too late for either of us to make another old friend.

I have decided that when I’m dead I’d like my body in the woods under a light coating of leaves. That being against the law, maybe I will go for cremation. I ask Chuck what he wants done with his rema...

Part of what I've learned is that if it isn't life and death, it isn't life and death.

But we're all looking for the place we belong. And what is home, anyway, but what we cobble together out of our changing selves? Maybe there isn't any it, as my friend said, only the longing

There is nothing like calamity for refreshing the moment. Ironically, the last several years my life had begun to feel shapeless, like underwear with the elastic gone, the days down around my ankles.

Looks as if I have an open umbrella concealed under my skirt. How did that happen?

It's easy now - it's middle-aged lady, nobody's looking, nobody notices. I go without lipstick if I feel like it, and I always wear my comfy clothes. It's a life with fewer distractions, but should so...

Don't worry, I say, putting a PG Tips tea bag in her mug. It's been happening for years. It's not getting worse. Besides, I'm not hearing voice, I'm overhearing them. I just don't know what they are s...

For better or for worse, but not for lunch,...

I was in love with a poet. I'm in it for the pleasure, I told my poet once, in a moment of bravado. The poet grinned at me. I'm in it for the pain, he said. It ended sadly. The kind of ending where yo...

If you were to look into our apartment in the late morning, or early afternoon, or toward suppertime, you might find us together sleeping. Of course a good rainy day is preferable, but even on sunny s...

Even when there's no interest on either side one's coordination completely disappears in the presence of beauty (Abigail's daughter, Jen)

What I used to fear was growing old—not the aches and pains part or the what-have-I-done-with-my-life part or the threat of illness, none of that. I just couldn’t imagine what my life would be like wi...

Drip and fling and pour color onto the glass. Then I push the paint around. You have to have some faith. If it looks like nothing, if you think you’ve destroyed what might have been a good painting, k...

She would (if she could) put her arm around the girl she'd been and try to tell her Take it easy, but the girl would not have listened. The girl had no receptors for Take it easy. And besides, Hey Jud...