Deb Caletti Quotes & Sayings

You gotta love an old-fashioned word like "quarrelsome." Today she'd just be a bitch. — Deb Caletti

There's grief and then there's the loneliness of grief. The way it's just yours and yours alone. — Deb Caletti

They never told you that stranger might be someone you knew. — Deb Caletti

Anyway, madness and genius. They're the disturbed pals of the human condition. The Bonnie and Clyde, the Thelma and Louise, the baking soda and vinegar. Insanity just walks alongside the brilliant like some creepy, insistent shadow. — Deb Caletti

When you raise an animal, you live it like your own child. — Deb Caletti

Here, kitty, kitty, Chico says. The cover of his cage is still on, making his tiny clown voice slightly muffled. I feel bad for him under there, just waiting to start his evil little day ... Freud walks toward Chico in his slinky fashion, sits under his cage and just stares. We have satanic pets ... our pets seem to have made a pact with the devil. — Deb Caletti

So, Abe, how do you know what to listen to inside?"
"What do you mean?" Abe sips his tea
..."Well, how do you know if something is a good thing for you or a bad thing?"
..."Shit." Abe sighs. "That's a big question. You're looking at instinct like it's a foolproof system. Like it's a global positioning device."
"I thought that's why we have it. That's why animals have it. To protect."
"Sure, but it's a tool. Not THE tool, one tool. More like an old-fashioned map, not a GPS. You know, it's great to have a map, but there's the chance you can hold it upside down, read it wrong. Sometimes you just have to see where the road leads. — Deb Caletti

I think a setting is hugely important. I look at setting as a character with its own look, sound, history, quirks, goofy temperaments and moods. — Deb Caletti

Stories took twists and turns down fairy-tale paths or down very human everyday ones. You think you're at the end of the book, and it's only the end of a chapter. — Deb Caletti

You could put your confusion and upset and worries into whatever book you were reading. You could sort of set them down in there, and you could come out with your head on a little straighter. I don't why stories worked that way, but they did. — Deb Caletti

What is this?"
"Plankton, basically," Henry says. "A plant. A bio luminescent plankton called dinoflagellates."
Oh, Henry. He's so romantic. — Deb Caletti

My most memorable teacher was Rich Campe, my third-grade teacher at Fairlands Elementary in Pleasanton, California. — Deb Caletti

The loneliness you feel with another person, the wrong person, is the loneliest of all. — Deb Caletti

A library is a physical equivalent of a sigh. — Deb Caletti

The most true-love words are not the ones that grasp and hold and bind you, twisting you both up together in some black dance. No, they are ones that leave you free to stand alone on your own solid ground, leave him to do the same, a tender space between you. — Deb Caletti

We are thickly layered, page lying upon page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding. — Deb Caletti

There was something about her mouth that made me feel possibilities ... the way a train ticket holds possibilities, the way a boat docked at sunset does, the way a voice on the radio announcing victory does. A mouth can have that it can seem brave, and bold. Finite and infinite. After a war, you need both of those things. "Why don't you kiss me, she said. "Celebrate a new world." And so I did. I could not forget that kiss. I still cannot. I put my fingertips to her face. Indeed,changed that day, but the change in life was no smaller or less significant. The moment took my sorrow and made it swarm the streets in victory, shouting in joy and rightness, and from that I have never quite recovered. — Deb Caletti

My father said that love at first sight should send you running, if you know what's good for you. It's your dark pieces having instant recognition with their dark pieces, he says. You're an idiot if you think it means you've met your soul mate. So I was an idiot. — Deb Caletti

Just because it turned out bad, doesn't mean it wasn't meant. — Deb Caletti

Fear causes the greatest changes, when you think about it. Fear is a monumental force. — Deb Caletti

I used to know a woman named Anita Hurl," Lizbeth said. "Get it? I need to hurl? — Deb Caletti

Butterflies are trapped first, before they are free. — Deb Caletti

Like all kids with divorced parents, I have an abundance of holidays. — Deb Caletti

Usually you just walk and walk among people who are not of your tribe, and then suddenly, there you are, in a place that feels familiar and known. — Deb Caletti

Unconditional love is like a contry of two with no laws and no government. Which is all fine if everyone is peaceful and law abiding. In the wrong hands, though, you got looting and crime sprees, and let me tell you, the people who demand unconditional love are usually the ones who will rob and pillage and then blame you because you left your door unlocked. — Deb Caletti

My father, Bobby Oates*, said that love at first sight should send you running, if you know what's good for you. It's your dark pieces having instant recognition with their dark pieces, he says. You're an idiot if you think it means you've met your soul mate. So I was an idiot. He looked so nice. He was so nice. — Deb Caletti

I learned something about truth - that truth has an urgency. It forces itself up sometimes, disregarding your need not to look, brought to the surface by that part of us that looks out for our own safety and well-being, if only we'd listen. — Deb Caletti

Summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people. for those few months, you're not required to be who everyone thinks you are, and that cut-grass smell in the air and the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool give you a courage you don't have the rest of the year. you can be grateful and easy, with no eyes on you, and no past. summer just opens the door and lets you out. — Deb Caletti

Sometimes you're sure dogs have some secret, superior intelligence, and other times you know they're only their simple, goofy selves. — Deb Caletti

Accents are funny in that they have this odd draw for us, yet we forget we have one, too. No one is without an accent, but the one you've got seems like oatmeal to their caviar. — Deb Caletti

I would have spoken, had my heart not been in my throat — Deb Caletti

My instinct is on target about Jenny, because she answers the phone with, "Is everything all right?"
"I've been abducted," I say.
"Aliens, I hope," she says. "We can make some money when you sell your story to the media. — Deb Caletti

He's not coming back. Maybe I do know this after all. Goodbye. I say to him in my head. I say it tenderly. I try to tell him with that one word how sorry I am. — Deb Caletti

It's hard to see clearly when your eyes are squinched tight out of fear. — Deb Caletti

I may be nervous," I say.
"Okay, I'm really glad you said that, because I just went to the back room to put on more deodorant." Sebastian says. — Deb Caletti

Goddamn it, Harry. You can't go falling for someone right in front of me after I got my heart broken. It's just plain rude. — Deb Caletti

..They will become afraid to the point of harming people after they've been hurt, even people who try to help them. — Deb Caletti

To be devasted, or to let the truth in, finally, finally, all the way, all the way, all the way, until it fills you with its own strength, with it's own knowledge
that love is light and not darkness, that love that is not good is not wortht of you, that love can only truly be given by those who are ble, those with hearts of quality and with careful hands. — Deb Caletti

A dog - a dog teaches us so much about love. Wordless, imperfect love; love that is constant, love that is simple
goodness, love that forgives not only bad singing and embarrassments, but misunderstandings and harsh words.
Love that sits and stays and stays and stays, until it finally becomes its own forever. Love, stronger than death. A dog is a four-legged reminder that love comes and time passes and then your heart breaks. — Deb Caletti

I confess I had a Child of Divorce Reunion Fantasy Number One Thousand, where I for a moment imagined my father finding out that Dino really was a killer woman and that my parents would have to get back together. I saw them running through a meadow, hand in hand. Okay, maybe not a meadow. But I saw me having only one Christmas and one phone number and only my father's shaved bristles in the bathroom sink. — Deb Caletti

I don't get why prom is like a mini-wedding these days ... No one should spend that kind of money for a high school dance. — Deb Caletti

Us frogs understand this. — Deb Caletti

Does the river make the choice to erode the rock? — Deb Caletti

We don't want you convicted for condiment theft. You go to that prison, you'll meet big-time operators. Maple syrup stealers. — Deb Caletti

If you look up "charming" in the dictionary, you'll see that it not only has references to strong attraction, but to spells and magic. Then again, what are liars if not great magicians? — Deb Caletti

You could try and understand people, you could read books and understand words and concepts and ideas, but you could never understand enough or have enough knowledge to keep away the surprises that both fate and human beings had in store. — Deb Caletti

The first rule of marital success: Don't marry crazy and don't be crazy. — Deb Caletti

Cars are all jammed up all along the road and a light turns red and someone honks. In every one of those cars there is a story or a hundred stories. For every light on in al of those huge city buildings there is a story. No one knows what I am about to face and no one knows my story and neither do I right then. — Deb Caletti

We had a humiliating and lengthy wait at a DONT WALK sign with not a car in sight for miles. Dad was a press about jaywalking. Or maybe he just like to stare down what he'd testily called the "grammatical error sanctioned by the state." There is, of course, no apostrophe in the DONT WALK sign. — Deb Caletti

One of the most constant and sustaining truths of my life has been this: I love the library. — Deb Caletti

Love is ease, love is comfort, love is support and respect. Love is not punishing or controlling. Love lets you grow and breathe. Love's passion is only good passion
swirling-leaves-on-a-fall-day passion, a-sky-full-of-magnificent-stars passion
not angst and anxiety. Love is not hurt and harm. Love is never unsafe. Love is sleeping like puzzle pieces. It's your own garden you protect; it's a field of wildflowers you move about in both freely and together. — Deb Caletti

What is uneasy when you are awake in the daylight is terror in the dark honesty of your dreams. — Deb Caletti

I shouldn't have to be a liar to make someone love me. I shouldn't be so afraid of losing someone that I'll do anything to make them stay. — Deb Caletti

You can hold a secret, hold it so far in that it drives nearly every thought and every move you make- your very heartbeat, almost. — Deb Caletti

When your arms are out wide, you'll capture love and joy and golden moments but other things, too. Mistrust will sneak in on a wave of that joy, and complications will ride the backs of the golden moments, and there will be both love and the risks of love. That's the way it is. That's the design. — Deb Caletti

This is what I know. Don't settle for 40, 50, or even 80 percent. A relationship-it shouldn't be too small or too tight or even a little scratchy. It shouldn't take up space in your closet out of guilty conscience or convenience or a moment of desire. Do you hear me? It shold be perfect for you. It should be lasting. Wait. wait for 100 percent. — Deb Caletti

If time heals all wounds, and a book can hold a person's entire life, then you can speed up the process with a pulp time warp. — Deb Caletti

I'd always thought telling the truth to other people was hard, but maybe that was a snap compared to telling the truth to yourself. Sometimes we just refused to know what we knew. — Deb Caletti

You've got to have someone who loves your body. Who doesn't define you, but sees you. Who loves what he sees. Who you don't have to struggle to be good enough for. — Deb Caletti

You're an asshole alive, you're still an asshole dead. — Deb Caletti

I love to see those paragliders weaving softly around Moon Point, their legs floating above you in the air. When they drift in for a landing, their feet touch the ground and they trot forward from the continued motion of the glider, which billows down like a setting sun. I never get tired of watching them and I've seen them thousands of times. I always wondered what that kind of freedom would feel like. — Deb Caletti

Anger has grand plans that sometimes look foolish later. — Deb Caletti

back of that woman's dress that night — Deb Caletti

I could forget that part, but it had to have been true. — Deb Caletti

A person who says "it's your decision" is informing you that your decision sucks. — Deb Caletti

Knowledge was a personal life preserver you could always count on when you were swimming in the deep end — Deb Caletti

I guess forgiveness, like happiness, isn't a final destination. You don't one day get there and get to stay. — Deb Caletti

It's good to let God pick a man for you. We don't do so well when we pick them ourselves. They end up lipsticks in a drawer, all those wrong colors you thought looked so good in the package. — Deb Caletti

Usually, I set one foot in a library and I feel my own internal volume lower. A library is a physical equivalent of a sigh. It's the silence, sure, but it's also the certainty of all those books, the way they stand side by side with their still, calm conviction. It's the reassurance of knowledge in the face of confusion. — Deb Caletti

Then again, could you go through a colonoscopy with someone and not be wedded for life? — Deb Caletti

I put the guitar back in the case. I can't even look at it anymore. Instead, I want to make brownies. I want an end result there's a recipe for. I want to combine eggs and water and oil and chocolate and flour and sugar and vanilla and get something fulfilling. — Deb Caletti

You look so good," I say, and s***! Oh god, that's not what I meant. S***! "It looks good. The book. — Deb Caletti

We put God in front of terrifying things, and we knocked three times, and we took drugs and shopped too much and obsessed about success, so that the scary stuff would look farther away than it was. We worried, because maybe if we worried enough, it would act like a spell of safety. All those things, superstitions and addictions and anxiety, they were all about hiding from what scared the shit out of us. — Deb Caletti

Your sibling, after all, is the only other person in the world who understands how fucked up your parents made you. — Deb Caletti

I guess after all those years he had exhausted me. I never knew I was signing up for a battle, but I finally knew that he had won. — Deb Caletti

Knowing takes its own time. I swear sometimes you've gotta get really, really uncomfortable before it shows up. — Deb Caletti

You've got an in-love feeling, but the relationship is damaging. When do you stop calling it love? — Deb Caletti

It was all the things you could never understand and could never possess that made you ache. — Deb Caletti

Knowledge is so comforting, but so is mystery. — Deb Caletti

It occurred to me then that a lot of life was either about wanting and not having, or having and not wanting. — Deb Caletti

You did that when you started to care a lot
you worried he was watching your every move to make sure he really wanted you. You could forget that maybe you were supposed to be doing that too. You forgot it wasn't just you being watched and judged and trying to pass some test. — Deb Caletti

Against the sky, she is exquisitely elsewhere. — Deb Caletti

Love can come when you're already who you are, when you're filled with you. Not when you look to someone else to fill the empty space. — Deb Caletti

Still, past assholes could make a person feel skittish. You had to be careful. It could all suddenly be different than you thought it was. A big possible mistake could be hidden anywhere, ready to blow up everything, same as stepping on a land mine. — Deb Caletti

I began to learn the importance of lifting things up and looking underneath. — Deb Caletti

Real tough guys don't swear, they just do. — Deb Caletti

It can be exhausting eating a meal cooked by a man. With a woman, it's, Ho hum, pass the beans. A guy, you have to act like he just built the Taj Mahal. — Deb Caletti

You have the ability to just go on and forget people and how much they are meant, but I don't. You can people in their own little boxes and leave them there. So much for love. So much for soul mates. I'm sorry you don't want to believe the best or how I can change. You put a stake through the heart. I'm the only one who cared enough to suffer like this. — Deb Caletti

Her look was easy to read - she couldn't understand, we'd always been able to talk, she was hurt. Mothers can give all of that to you in one brief look. — Deb Caletti

And, oh, I am riding such a high, full wave of love that I have to fall. Of course I have to. Of course, because life and love is joy and pain, fullness and emptiness, highs and lows, tide in, tide out. I will have to fall hard from that high wave, smack right down on my sorry face, but we are not at that part of the story yet. — Deb Caletti

We are all a volume on a shelf of a library, a story unto ourselves, never possibly described with one word or even very accurately with thousands. A person is never as quiet or unrestrained as they seem, or as bad or good, as vulnerable or as strong, as sweet or as fiesty; we are thickly layered, page upon lying page, behind simple covers. And love - it is not the book itself, but the binding. It can rip us apart or hold us together. — Deb Caletti

It's a twisted version of Green Eggs and Ham: I could panic in a train! I could panic on a plane! I could panic on the stairs - I could panic anywhere! — Deb Caletti

Love." She looked at me with those blue eyes. "Isn't it astonishing how confused and complicated such a small,simple word is? It attracts so many other things, doesn't it, that stick to it like barnacles on rock ... fear, guilt. Need. You can't even see the rock anymore. I imagine love in its purest form is a rare thing. — Deb Caletti

In a lifetime, the recipe always needs amending - more of this, a little less of that, what to do now that the cake has fallen. — Deb Caletti

People are secretive when they have secrets. — Deb Caletti

It makes you realize how basically everything we do comes down to a) mating or b) competing for resources. It's just like Animal Planet, only we've got Cover Girl and Victoria's Secret instead of colored feathers and fancy markings, and the violence occurs at the Nordstrom's Half-Yearly Sale. — Deb Caletti

Fury and devastation are fraternal twins. — Deb Caletti

Empathy took the edge off, and the truth is, we need our edge. Our edge is trying to speak to us, and we are too, too good at shutting it up. — Deb Caletti

This is not to say I don't feel my own grief, which can hit powerfully at unexpected times. It's just that the telling does not automatically bring on my own upset, as people assume. I deal more with their reaction than they do with mine, and so you have to choose your timing. — Deb Caletti

Once again, I am translucent. I could break against rocks. I am ten thousand miles down and ten thousand miles across and around and it's too far and too long and too deep, but there is no black-haired body with wide, soft brown eyes looking into mine and seeing exactly who I am. — Deb Caletti