Ann Howard Creel Quotes & Sayings

When I'd headed out here on my wedding day, I hadn't realized I'd bought a ticket to my own history, a different one from studying Akh-en-aten and Horizon-of-the-Aten, maybe, but a living, ongoing one. — Ann Howard Creel

If my father hadn't come to America about 35 years ago, I'd be starving in Poland . . . I'd be sobbing in France . . . I'd be stealing in Greece . . . I'd be shivering in Belgrade . . . I'd be slaving in Frankfurt . . . I'd be hiding in Prague . . . I'd be buried in Russia. But here he was, alive and walking on his own two feet. — Ann Howard Creel

As a child, when I first heard the story of Creation, I'd closed my eyes and pictured the earth as a ball rolling off the palm of God and into dark space, then drifting around until it found its home in sunny orbit. Never perfect, but ever spinning, and holding on to her course, despite it all. — Ann Howard Creel

[Livvy and her father] Neither of us had been as strong as we'd wanted to be. — Ann Howard Creel

Rose spoke up softly beside me. 'It's how you handle the unfairness of life -that's what matters, I think.'...In this city of imprisonment, I had seen faith and optimism, strength and fortitude in the face of adversity. — Ann Howard Creel

He touched me as if I were the curved and delicate handle of a china cup, but he held me tightly just as I was, flesh and blood and full of human flaws and fears. In his arms I wasn't a girl dreaming of sailing the high seas, and I wasn't a farm kid jumping the train, either, but a fully grown woman riding the soft side of a crescent moon. — Ann Howard Creel

My aunts were not cruel, you understand. They loved to talk, and at every available opportunity they gave away the neatly wrapped presents of their thoughts, confident that no one would refuse them. — Ann Howard Creel

Separately we might have sunk, but together we moved beyond bloodlines and nationalities and backgrounds and formed a vessel that somehow stayed afloat. — Ann Howard Creel

Sometimes you do find what you're looking for closer than you think — Ann Howard Creel

makes us no promises, no guarantees. Things move toward us whether we want them or not. Accidents occur, illnesses strike, and bombs fall. One street can be pulverized, the next one over not even scratched. Chance is so shifty and arbitrary. — Ann Howard Creel

One can't step into the river twice — Ann Howard Creel

[Ray to Livvy] Aren't you used to people meaning what they say? — Ann Howard Creel

Memories are fragile things to hold, but many times, it's what we have. — Ann Howard Creel

Words of kindness had always been more difficult for me to handle than harsh reprimands. Ever since I had been quite young, I could resist those who went against me, had been able to deny their opinions. My inner strength came from an ability to handle, then separate myself from, adversity. Compassion, however, brought up more raw emotion than judgments could ever stir. — Ann Howard Creel

eyes running over me like the work of a hundred biting ants — Ann Howard Creel

I'd become a woman who dreamed of yelling at people who didn't even know how infuriating I found them. — Ann Howard Creel

In the past, I would've listed things such as common interests, mutual attraction, worldliness, and higher education. My freedom above all else. If I had found love, it would have had to be the kind that overwhelmed and overpowered all else.

I passed a hand between Ray and Me. "Once you told me that this," I said "is a beginning." I searched his face. "But how do you know, Ray? How do you know it's the beginning of something good?"

"I know." His breath was warm on my face as he moved in closer." Because someday, you're bound to forgive yourself. — Ann Howard Creel

At that moment, I wished with everything in my body that things could be different. I wished I could pluck out the threads of him that I didn't care for and keep the ones I liked. But then again, I knew that people couldn't be pulled apart in that way. Those severed threads would just cause the whole of him to unravel. — Ann Howard Creel