Wally Lamb Quotes

The evidence of God exists in the roundness of things.

I won't read novels while writing novels.

Love stories are probably all Ive ever been able to write or want to write.

Fiction writing is a strange business when you think about it. You sit down and weave a network of lies to explore deeper truths.

The greatest griefs are silent.

Look, don't just stare at the pages, " I used to tell my students. "Become the characters. Live inside the book.

Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love.

You know what 'Dolores' means? It's Latin, means sadness. Our Lady of Sorrow. Why are you so sad?

A fiction writer weaves a fabric of lies in hopes of revealing deeper human truths.

Getting a job scared her but she was determined not to shy away from risk. That’s what life’s all about. Climbing out onto the airplane wing and jumping off.

That melting pot stuff was always more about what this country wanted to believe about itself than the way people really felt.

Change what you can, accept what you can’t, and be smart enough to know the difference

Love is like breathing. You take it in and let it out.

You can be two things if you're a woman, Dolores. Betty Crocker or a floozy. Just remember your place - even if it kills you.

People walk in the door because they need you to take care of them -- to feed them or fix them.

Sometimes the closer we got to a situation, the less clear it looked.

What if I don’t like adventure?Then cultivate a taste for it. Take a chance. That’s how you grow.

Change what you can, accept what you can't, and be smart enough to know the difference.

Jack Speight undid me, then I almost undid myself. But I've undone some of the bad, too, some of the damage. With help. With luck and love.

When you deserved it, even the mail could rape you.

Here is a girl who is pretty in a quiet way. I bet she's had a very sad life.

So maybe that’s what love means. Having the capacity to forgive the one who wronged you, no matter how deep the hurt was.

If I could just write it down in a piece of paper, then maybe she could get a decent night's sleep, eat a little of her dinner. Maybe she could have a minute's worth of peace.

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself.

Is that what love is all about? Needing them to come back to you when they're away? To come home and keep you safe?

Her shut-eyed smile transformed itself into something else: the smile of someone brave and knowing, someone whose pain had made her wise.

I needed her to stop. Needed not to hear the pain in her voice--to see the way she was twisting the pocketbook strap. If she kept talking, she might break down and tell me everything.

-- that books were mirrors, reflective in sometimes unpredictable ways.

Maybe that's what love is. Having someone who guides you through different experiences, coaxes you to try news things but still makes you feel safe.

A life I didn't choose chose me.