Delia Ephron Quotes & Sayings

I'm planning to give up worrying. I want to, but I'm worried I won't be able to. — Delia Ephron

One cannot overstate the potential for hysteria on a movie set. Everyone always acts as if making the movie is as important as eradicating malaria. — Delia Ephron

In Los Angeles, by the time you're 35, you're older than most of the buildings. — Delia Ephron

On the subject of spinach: divide into little piles. Rearrange again into new piles. After five of six maneuvers, sit back and say you are full. — Delia Ephron

For me, having it all - if one wants to define it at all - is the magical time when what you want and what you have match up. — Delia Ephron

In the family I grew up in, being called boring was like being called an ax murderer. — Delia Ephron

Do you think you can cause something to happen just from wanting it so much?' she asked. 'I don't get what you mean. Does this have to do with your dad?' asked Frannie. 'Not really. I'm talking about loneliness.' Frannie turned around and considered her answer. For awhile she seemed to be in a wilderness of her own. 'Do you mean that you imagined that Issy was your friend?' 'Yes, so completely that it was real.' 'Oh, that can happen. I believe that totally. Loneliness is powerful. — Delia Ephron

It consists entirely of people who are not related by blood, many of whom can't stand each other. — Delia Ephron

Your basic extended family today includes your ex-husband or -wife, your ex's new mate, your new mate, possibly your new mate's ex and any new mate that your new mate's ex has acquired. — Delia Ephron

New Yorkers are born all over the country, and then they come to New York City and it hits them: Oh, that's who I am. — Delia Ephron

Preparing for the worst is an activity I have taken up since I turned thirty-five, and the worst actually began to happen. — Delia Ephron

I heard her surprise and then the sigh as we began the rhythm of connection and self-absorption, the miracle of sex. — Delia Ephron

God, secrets could simply do you in. — Delia Ephron

Maybe the truth can't be buried. Or maybe it can't stay buried. Maybe the very nature of truth is that it will ultimately reveal itself. — Delia Ephron

In your standard-issue family, of which few remain, but on which our expectations are still based, there are parents and there are children. The way you know which are which, aside from certain size and age differences and despite any behavior similarities, is that the parents are the bossy ones. — Delia Ephron

One quarter of what you buy will turn out to be mistakes. — Delia Ephron

I was always decoding. I was hyperalert.
Being hyperalert is a lasting thing. Being a watcher. Noticing emotional shirts, infinitesimally small tremors that flit over another person's face, the jab in a seemingly innocuous word, the quickening in a walk, an abrupt gesture - the way, say, a jacket is tossed over a chair. — Delia Ephron

If you are a stepparent, rush right out and get yourself a dog. Because it's very nice to have someone in the house that loves you. — Delia Ephron

I have one rule I live by: Only do what you can do. That neans you're never looking outside for what's popular; you're always looking inside for what's true. — Delia Ephron

Children are a house's enemy. They don't mean to be - they just can't help it. It's their enthusiasm, their energy, their naturally destructive tendencies. — Delia Ephron

Wanting to be liked can get in the way of truth. — Delia Ephron

There is something fantastic about getting divorced. Everyone should do it to experience the extraordinary sense of freedom after being in marriage jail. — Delia Ephron

Am I being too critical? That's what happens when you feel shitty about yourself. You turn into a bitch. — Delia Ephron

Someone will always tell you what you want to hear. — Delia Ephron

A man doesn't recognize his own wife. Because she's happy. — Delia Ephron

Being in your twenties has changed a lot since I was in my twenties, but it is still a time everything awful that happens is awful in a romantic way, even if you don't admit it (and you can't admit it because then you would be less important in the tragedy you're starring in, your own life) ... because in your twenties you know, even if you don't admit this either, even if this is buried deep in your subconscious, that you can waste an entire decade and still have a life. — Delia Ephron

Who cared that he couldn't spell? She was a good-enough speller for both of them. With luck, their children would take after her. — Delia Ephron

I have to tell you something strange. My mirror cracked. I feel as if I caused it because it didn't just crack, it kind of cracked up. But that's impossible. I researched it. Telekinesis has no basis in science. That a person can cause an object to move or to change... that energy, grief, or I guess joy or anxiety or even fierce determination could cause something to happen... people claim to have done it, but there's no proof.' 'Just because you can't prove something scientifically,' said Frannie, 'doesn't mean it's not possible. — Delia Ephron

Writing is how I understand everything that happens. Writing is the only way I know to move on. — Delia Ephron

Again from a distance, Sukie was once again struck by her mother's chic and how different things can seem from far away, how there's more than one truth, the faraway truth and the truth close up. — Delia Ephron

In life one rarely knows which remarks of the hundreds uttered in the course of a day will turn out to be auspicious. In fiction, foreshadowing is planted and flagged in some (hopefully or desperately) subtle way, drama demands it. — Delia Ephron

As complicated as joint custody is, it allows the delicious contradiction of having children and maintaining the intimacy of life-before-kid s. — Delia Ephron

Clothes have special power. I'll always remember the raspberry colored v-necked silk sweater I was wearing on my husband and my first date. If I hadn't been wearing that sweater that night, would any of it have happened? — Delia Ephron

She has bitten into a crisp juicy apple and wondered if the bite and the thought were connected
one never knew what went together, and seemingly random acts could be cosmically related. — Delia Ephron

If you think about something else hard enough, you can mostly control your feelings. — Delia Ephron

You are a long trail through the woods," she said. "And in the woods people prefer a shortcut." Our — Delia Ephron

I love it that I'm standing alone, it doesn't bother me, actually I prefer it, actually I don't give a shit. I am a superior being in an alien world. No, in a world of red-faced aliens. That thought tickled her, but only for a minute. Mainly she longed to feel that she wasn't invisible. — Delia Ephron