Jennifer Coburn Quotes & Sayings

Challenging, darling," Anjoli corrected. "Release the struggle consciousness. Challenges can be overcome. One can rise to a challenge. Difficulty sounds so hopeless. Words are affirmations. Affirmations are manifestations. Manifestations - " "All right already! Eating will be challenging, are you happy?" "In general or at the moment?" "Good God, Mother! — Jennifer Coburn

What will I do? I'll do as I have always done, darling. I will go on. I will survive. I shall overcome." It's tough to manage sounding like Scarlett O'Hara, Gloria Gaynor, and a one-woman civil rights movement all at the same time, but Anjoli pulled it off with aplomb. — Jennifer Coburn

Okay," Jack said. "I'm not really sure what you want from me." "I want you to stop trying to deny every feeling I ever have, Jack. I want you to stop telling me not to feel bad when I already do. I want you to stop telling me I look fine when it's so patently obvious that I don't. I want you to stop being so uncomfortable when things aren't perfect that you immediately start trying to pretend they are." Even as the words were coming out of my mouth, I realized how unfair I was being. Yes, I wanted for him to accept my emotional reality. But only when it suited me. I also wanted him to tell me that the baby would be fine when it was what I needed to hear. At least Jack was consistent. I was a nut job. — Jennifer Coburn

This seemed to drive home the basic principle that perspective and distance affect perception. — Jennifer Coburn

One semester, I was busted for reverse plagiarism, which basically meant I was too lazy to research a paper for my psychology class so cited false references to support my own theories on deviant behavior. — Jennifer Coburn

What Jews do you know who don't make comedy of their lives? It's part of the religion. I'll bet you think all that Hebrew at bar mitzvahs is prayers, don't you? Fooled you, didn't we? It's stand-up. — Jennifer Coburn

I am a thousand scattered pieces that no one has bothered to put together. — Jennifer Coburn

At forty-two, I was still holding up pretty well, but my once effortlessly lean body now look as though it belonged in a Dove firming cream ad -- the one where they give women permission to have thighs. When I unbuttoned my jeans at night, I swore I heard the same sound that Pillsbury dough made when I twisted the cylindrical container. My hair was beginning to gray, and when I smiled, the parentheses around my mouth remained. My least favorite position in yoga class was the downward dog because, as I hung my head downward, I always felt the skin from my face was about to splatter against my mat like a pancake batter hitting the griddle. So being called the top model by a young Italian was a wonderful souvenir, though cheaper than the toys sold outside the Pantheon in Rome. — Jennifer Coburn

Timing is a wonderful thing sometimes. It can save us from ourselves. — Jennifer Coburn

Other couples are living separately ever after, — Jennifer Coburn

It was that Michelle had the rare gift of taking people as they came. — Jennifer Coburn

In fifth grade, I remember my best friend, Vicki DeMattia, opening her lunch box and finding a note from her mother. I love you, Vicki! Sometimes Mrs. DeMattia included more, like what they would do together after school or how many kisses Vicki owed her from their Monopoly game the previous night. I got notes from Anjoli, too. They were typed and left on the dining room table. They went something like this: Lucy: I'm at the theatre tonight and won't be home till after you're asleep. On the table, please find ten dollars for dinner. Be sure to include a vegetable and a green salad. Rinse lettuce thoroughly. Pesticides can kill you. Anjoli. — Jennifer Coburn

was like a crystal bowl filled with warm kettle corn. But when you lifted it up and checked the bottom, you could see a layer of burnt, unpopped kernels. The kind that makes you flinch from the unexpected bitter taste. The kind that may cause you to chip a tooth. — Jennifer Coburn

It infuriated me that men could walk around feeling perfectly good about their appearance whether they had a unibrow, triple chin, or skin flaps hanging off their eyelids, but stunning women like Faidra felt the need to have an unblemished butthole. The world is insane. Not — Jennifer Coburn

Fear of dying young isn't an altogether bad thing. Sometimes it makes you try what you might otherwise delay. — Jennifer Coburn

The next morning, the thrush had cleared up almost completely. No pain. No swearing. No gnashing my teeth. I was fit for my own page in the nursing book. I was so proud of my new skill, I wanted to share it with everyone. I told my letter carrier about how my nipples were in top form again. He was thrilled for me, really. That day, I was such a show-off I had to resist the urge to lie down on the supermarket floor and squirt my milk into the air like fountains. I thought I had such a choice piece of entertainment, I imagined spending my spring afternoons in the park collecting tips in a cup for my milk-producing excellence. — Jennifer Coburn

Lack of panache, I silently corrected him. "I don't know how you'd describe it, but there's earnestness about you, Mona. There's nothing frivolous about you." They call it boring. Insipid. Vacuous. Dry. Dull. Plain. Vanilla minus the vanilla flavor. But thanks for trying to make it sound like an attribute. Now I feel as though I should schedule an appointment with a cosmetic surgeon for both a facelift and a personality implant. — Jennifer Coburn

He was the kind of guy who won the stupid tricks contest at local bars by inhaling a silver chain up his nostril and pulling it out his mouth. — Jennifer Coburn

Rita could find fault with a twenty-one-gun salute in her honor. "Too noisy," she'd complain. "All that gun powdah makes me cough." Bernice, on the other hand, was overjoyed when a salesman from the cremation place informed her that her ashes would weigh about six pounds. "Thin at last!" she shrieked. — Jennifer Coburn

He interrupted. "No, Lisa, other families do not have sons who are Girl Scouts. I'm teaching that boy to fight," Jason muttered to himself, "A gay, black Girl Scout. What the hell happened to this family? We were normal back in San Francisco. — Jennifer Coburn

Changing yourself into who you think someone else wants is hurting yourself. It's a rejection of who you are, and that's toxic. You're committing emotional suicide." I — Jennifer Coburn

A trip to Paris had sounded so adventurous when I was first talking about it a year earlier. People spoke about the city with dreamy longing, as though Paris possessed a magic that could not be found elsewhere. I'd never heard anyone talk about Paris without sighing. The city was a Promised Land that held appeal for most everyone: artists, lovers, even people who just liked cheese. — Jennifer Coburn

Not to make sweeping generalizations about men, but I can pretty well guess how this conversation would go down. Jack: Everything okay? You seem down in the mouth lately. Maxime: It is fine. Jack: Okay, just checking. See ya. — Jennifer Coburn

Without music, our culture is a poor and soulless place where people simply exist but cease to live. — Jennifer Coburn

During one session, the therapist returned from a trip to the rest room to find that another dog had dug a hole in a potted plant and buried Mancha. — Jennifer Coburn

To know Paris, Bruno began, pulling on his cigarette, you need to relax, have a glass of wine, and enjoy life. — Jennifer Coburn

MFA program at the University of Michigan when we met. — Jennifer Coburn

Ask any single parent whether they'd like an extra set of hands around the house and they'd take it." They'd take it if it weren't the set of hands belonging to the rat bastard who asked for a divorce the same day the pregnancy test read positive. — Jennifer Coburn

Visiting Florence was like attending a surprise party every day. — Jennifer Coburn