Jan Ellison Quotes

Perhaps blame is the way the universe organizes itself around tragedy and loss. Without blame, suffering is random, and that kind of randomness leads to madness

The photo is there in the hatbox, evidence that all the people I love best in the world were once in the same house, at the same time, healthy and whole, celebrating the season together.

A man like that, I thought, would take you in hand. A man like that would keep you safe from yourself. Was it love at first sight? Not exactly. But it was a haven in the storm.

The mania had given her a reckless invincibility, as drinking used to give me, a reckless certainty that she could, and should, get what she wanted at any cost. And

Such a terrible word, terminate. A word from a brave new world in which only the flawless are allowed to be born.

Perception is often loath to give up its stranglehold on the mind

TO LAY. To lie. A lay. A lie. It’s a versatile but tricky word, isn’t it? To get the lay of the land. To lay down the law. To lay blame. To lie low. To lie down on the job. To let it lie. To lie down...

Of course it is upon the rubble of ancient history that the present stands. L

It’s true—I don’t really believe in mistakes. There’s only what you do, and what you don’t do, isn’t there? It was a mistake to the extent anything like that is a mistake. The before and after of it l...

There’s the past again, keeping its foothold, wreaking its havoc.

It was so undignified and unnecessary, the way married people behaved. The indiscriminate airing of grievances, the incessant flinging of blame and complaint. Of course, I had no idea back then what a...

To LAY. To lie. A lay. A lie. It's a versatile but tricky word, isn't it? To get the lay of the land. To lay down the law. To lay blame. To lie low. To lie down on the job. To let it lie. To lie down...

I knew it wasn’t the right kind of love, because it required nothing of me. I did not need to worry about keeping it alive or putting it out since it was kept alive quite independently of anything I m...

I had misplaced you, and now I was losing them, too. Then

[we] made love, though it was a stretch to call it that. I was making love, I think; he was taking what I made.

But this time it was her other self I saw, not the dark fairy of want but a middle-aged woman, like the woman I am now, plain, chastened, mortal. The

It is upon the rubble of ancient history that today stands

If, when I looked, I was not perfect, how could I be beautiful? And if I was not beautiful, how could I be loved?

When we arrived at the hospital, you were in a medically induced coma, which I was made to understand was a sort of freezing of you, a fabricated reprieve from your own body that would allow your inte...

At nine, she had begun to see a truer picture of me than Polly could. She had begun to see what I saw—not beauty, but imperfections. I let her pull away from me.