Terry McMillan Quotes & Sayings

Yeah, well all I can say is that a half truth is a still a while lie, ain't it ... — Terry McMillan

I'm not trying to be a middle aged centerfold, I just want to look at myself naked and not be disgusted. — Terry McMillan

It is clear to me right this minute that regret is just a wasted emotion. — Terry McMillan

Good parents have children who do terrible things and vice-versa. — Terry McMillan

They learned the hard way that you can't save nobody who ain't interested in being saved. — Terry McMillan

I just believe that young people need to be able to learn how to write in their own voice. Just like a musician, you pride yourself on having your own distinct sound. — Terry McMillan

I pray for my mother. That if she can't ever recover what she's lost or what she's losing, that she not feel like she's lost. I pray that we make her feel necessary and valued as long as possible. That she comes to know comfort, even if I can't provide it myself. — Terry McMillan

Let me put it this way: when I read, I learned the world was not as small as my house. And that everybody in my home town was not representative of the way people in the world were raised. And that was what saved me. — Terry McMillan

I'd crack up without my music. It's the best company you can have, really. It don't say 'no' or 'maybe,' or ask no questions. — Terry McMillan

It goes without saying that your friends are usually the first to discuss your personal business behind your back. — Terry McMillan

At least be a nice lesbian or you're going to give the rest a bad rap. — Terry McMillan

Parents can ruin children, and sometimes that's a learned behavior. Sometimes you can't blame your parents for it, sometimes you can. I think to me, that's what the whole paradox is, is people that have children that don't even know how to raise them. — Terry McMillan

I pray for my sister. That she be allowed to discover grace and find peace without drugs. That her hair grows. That some of her pain be driven from her and given to me because I think I can handle it. I pray for her kids. That they find they have a chance to grow up knowing they were loved. — Terry McMillan

Their young live were over, too, except they had to die everyday while still breathing. — Terry McMillan

I take what people feel and think, especially when it's different from, very seriously, and I find it liberating. — Terry McMillan

I don't live my life as a writer. I'm a mother, an African-American woman, and I do everything that everybody else does - cook and a little bit of cleaning. — Terry McMillan

I don't let negative criticism, for the most part, bother me. — Terry McMillan

Wherever there's a prison, for the most part, especially where there's Black people, it's overcrowded. I don't know who really gets out. — Terry McMillan

Being a lifetime wife and mother has afforded me the luxury of having multiple and even simultaneous careers: I've been a chauffeur. A chef. An interior decorator. A landscape architect, as well as a gardener. I've been a painter. A furniture restorer. A personal shopper. A veterinarian's assistant and sometimes the veterinarian. I've been an accountant, a banker and on occasion, a broker. I've been a beautician. A map. A psychic. Santa Claus. The Tooth Fairy. The T.V. Guide. A movie reviewer. An angel. God. A nurse and a nursemaid. A psychiatrist and psychologist. Evangelist. For a long time I have felt like I inadvertently got my master's in How To Take Care of Everybody Except Yourself and then a Ph.D. in How to Pretend Like You Don't Mind. But I do mind. — Terry McMillan

I remember the day I turned thirty. I was getting out of the shower and I stood in front of the mirror and stared at myself for a long time. I examined every inch of my body and appreciated the fact that I finally looked like a grown woman. I also assumed that this was how I was going to look for the rest of my life. The way I saw it, I was never going to age; I'd just look up one day and be old. — Terry McMillan

Look, as my mama always said, 'One monkey don't stop no show. — Terry McMillan

I would like to think that as a result of not just my own experiences, but at least being empathetic and compassionate about other people's experiences and plights and tragedies, that I am affected by it and learn from it. — Terry McMillan

We get divorce, we get conned, someone we love dies, or we can't find anybody to love us or somebody breaks our heart and we realize this fairy tale ain't fair. So we suffer. — Terry McMillan

Money does not guarantee happiness or peace of mind, it can take your mind off things, distract you, but it can't replace the generic stuff a person needs! — Terry McMillan

Why is it that if you happen to be black and over six feet tall, everybody thinks you supposed to play basketball or football? — Terry McMillan

I'm not an angry woman. I'm not bitter. — Terry McMillan

Gay is the new straight, in case you haven't noticed. — Terry McMillan

Back then I confused passions and orgasms with love. It look me years to realize the two weren't synonymous. — Terry McMillan

I thought you said you were trying to quit swearing!
Go to hell, Paulette. I will. As soon as I can have a whole week where no crazy or ridiculous or unbelievable shi*t happens an my mind is calm long enough to remember how to think. — Terry McMillan

They're bored with their boring husbands who are workaholics like my dad. They're bored with their boring lives, sick of us kids and all this puberty and rebelling, so they pop pills all day long and shop and watch the soaps, and then when it all starts to fall apart they realize they just want to be happy again, so they go to rehab to clean up their act and then start fresh. Can you relate? — Terry McMillan

You know, one of my fears about living alone so long is that you get used to doing everything your own way. — Terry McMillan

People need to be re - sometimes we need to reinvent ourselves and then get reacquainted with our better selves. — Terry McMillan

It takes me forever to say my prayers these days, but I don't care, because this time around, I want to make sure God doesn't have to do any guesswork. — Terry McMillan

Don't worry about how pretty (the story) sounds, how lilting it is, and the imagery, and the metaphor, all that. Most readers don't care. It's the people in your book that matter. — Terry McMillan

I'm more interested in interpersonal relationships - between lovers families, siblings. That's why I write about how we treat each other. — Terry McMillan

Write from your heart, and God will take care of the rest. — Terry McMillan

I try to create characters that I am fascinated by on some level or intrigued by or can't stand. — Terry McMillan

So are you happy? he asks.
I hate it when anyone asks me that. It's such a loaded fucking question. Are they talking aggregate years? Doesn't it depend on the day, the moment? Or are they referring to last year or last month? — Terry McMillan

I've got tons of irreplaceable information inside the soul of this computer. — Terry McMillan

Life is like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to see the whole picture, then put it together piece by piece! — Terry McMillan

I love writing in first person more than third. I have to basically suspend my own world. I don't exist. I'm just a conduit. So I can be eight years old. I can be the mother of a kid that you find out certain things I'm not going to say. — Terry McMillan

People like to run their mouths. — Terry McMillan

I was tired of chasing ghosts, hollow men who were outside my comfort zone, men who had nothing to give me except a rush. It was all I asked for, and all I ever got. — Terry McMillan

It should be obvious that I wasn't no honor roll student in high school. My favorite class was boys. — Terry McMillan

Cruising the Internet doesn't count as writing. Neither does answering e-mail. Before you check Twitter & FB and do other similar tasks that get in the way of writing, write first. (I really need to take my own advice here!) — Terry McMillan

I like to think of what happens to characters in good novels and stories as knots
things keep knotting up. And by the end of the story
readers see an unknotting of sorts. Not what you expect, not the easy answers you get on TV, not wash and wear philosophies, but a reproduction of believable, emotional experiences. — Terry McMillan

As a writer, you get to bring attention to something without preaching. I don't believe in being didactic. So if you dramatize something, you automatically bring attention to it if people read it. — Terry McMillan

It's amazing how we can make ourselves believe what we want to. — Terry McMillan

We never thought some guy would deliberately fill our hearts with brown sugar and then pour hot water all over it. — Terry McMillan

Writing is my shelter. I don't hide behind the words; I use them to dig inside my heart to find the truth. — Terry McMillan

Few writers are willing to admit writing is autobiographical. — Terry McMillan

Can't nothing make your life work if you ain't the architect. — Terry McMillan

I like doing the readings and the autographing, but the interviewing gets a little tedious because you get asked the same questions every day and sometimes three or four times a day. — Terry McMillan

Now, I've been known to be attractive on special occasions, and I do my best to project as much beauty as I can muster from deep inside, though I often fail. — Terry McMillan

I let my characters do the talking, simple as that. — Terry McMillan

I'm a fast writer. — Terry McMillan

I have a big mouth, and over the years, as the eldest of five, I have had a tendency to speak when no one really cared. — Terry McMillan

I'm the only one who can stop me.. I'm the one who's been sitting at the stoplight all these years, waiting for the light to turn green. — Terry McMillan

Because after my marriage fell apart I felt like an empty parking space, and James just pulled into it. — Terry McMillan

Over the years it became clear that sometimes you fall in love only to realize you don't even like the person. — Terry McMillan

It's sad to think that we've gotten to this that we actually have to think about how to go about finding a man. But what's even sadder is that some men make you feel guilty for looking. — Terry McMillan

since it's obvious that not having this baby — Terry McMillan

I used to get a lot of letters from prisoners. It used to get on my nerves. Especially family members. Everybody's innocent. — Terry McMillan

It now seems obvious that the way we're raised has a major impact on what kind of person we turn out to be, but so does who we love. — Terry McMillan

The best rush in the world is getting something at 80 percent off. — Terry McMillan

I don't trust white critics' judgment about most things that deal with black life, particularly when a black person is the creator. — Terry McMillan

I became a better person because of the time I spent with him, knowing him. I never got a chance to tell him that. — Terry McMillan

Okay, so I lied about my age. Everybody does. — Terry McMillan

Always listen to the parent who doesn't like who you love. They can smell a mistake. Of course, you don't find this out until you realize that the person you fell in love with is different from the person you married. Some men are good at fooling you. — Terry McMillan

Every human being I know craves love and affection. — Terry McMillan

What's universal is the texture of our relationships. It's evolving. Times are changing with the women's movement. Men's roles are being redefined and, in some ways, they're confused. — Terry McMillan

For five years I didn't think it was possible to be this happy.
But then he forgot all those promises he made. He forgot why he loved me. He simply stopped loving me.

And this is how he did it:
He stopped talking to me unless I spoke to him.
He stopped holding my hand.
He stopped kissing me good night.
He stopped kissing me good morning.
He stopped kissing me.
He stopped smiling at me.
He stopped laughing.
He stopped bathing and showering with me.
He stopped wanting me.
He started swearing at me.
He started lying to me.
He started cheating on me.
He hurt me.
And then he told me he was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce.
Oh, I forgot. He said he was sorry.

I wanted to blow his fucking brains out. — Terry McMillan

Folks want to glow, to leave their worries and dead skin behind. — Terry McMillan

What I do know is sometimes we love the wrong people and sometimes we marry them. — Terry McMillan

You promised me you would never cheat on me, that you'd love me forever and we would never get a divorce." "I still love you, and I hate that I cheated on you, and I wish we'd never gotten divorced. — Terry McMillan

Pay attention to the things that agitate you. It will tell you a lot about yourself. — Terry McMillan

I also discovered that you can get used to a man , much like you do a household pet! — Terry McMillan

Writing is the only place I can be myself and not feel judged. — Terry McMillan

If you jump to conclusions, you make terrible landings. — Terry McMillan

Most women are amazing. They just need to be with someone who makes it easy for them to express it. I think it's called respect. — Terry McMillan

Happiness aint got no Ph.D. or no certain amount of zeroes behind it! — Terry McMillan

If it works, I'll be happy for you. If it doesn't, I'll be here for you. — Terry McMillan

There is a price for popularity. Critics look for your weaknesses, your flaws, anything that makes the work seem like a fluke and not seem worthy of all the attention it's getting. — Terry McMillan

Sometimes I cheat and buy things I used to make from scratch and just doctor them up. — Terry McMillan

My stories are character driven. — Terry McMillan

I can't stand that - those women in 'Waiting to Exhale' now. I can't stand them. But that's because I'm 53 and not 33. But what they were experiencing at 33, I identified with it. — Terry McMillan

It's not that marriage itself is bad; it's the people we marry who give it a bad name. — Terry McMillan

He encouraged me to take one more deep puff and hold it in, so I did, and the smoke traveled down on top of my esophagus and then did a U-turn up into where my brain was supposed to be. At first it felt like fireworks, and then I began to feel like I was floating down a stream. I liked it. And I took another puff and studied my ass off. The next morning, however, I would fail my very first Spanish exam, because I would not remember how to conjugate anything except Abraham. — Terry McMillan

As far as young kids go, my primary interest is to get parents to read to their kids. That's about the most you can do, I think. — Terry McMillan

I like gay men who don't hate women, and I don't mind being around rich white people, because there's plenty of them in the Bay Area, and I know how to ignore Republicans. — Terry McMillan

I pray for my children. That they stay safe and make good decisions. That they be happy, thoughtful, and caring human beings. That they have the strength to get up if they fall down. — Terry McMillan

You've been killing me inside and I don't want to die like this. — Terry McMillan

I would be content being a housewife if I could find the kind of man who wouldn't treat me like one. — Terry McMillan

My mama taught me that anything worth doing in life should be a little scary. — Terry McMillan

I want to push the fast-forward button until I get back to happy. — Terry McMillan

I been saying it for years: church is full of sneaky men posing as honest souls, and they are perpetuators our here looking for women just like you, with giant holes in your hearts, and they can smell when you got a good job and when you lonely as hell. — Terry McMillan

Men cheat. They lie. They love porn. The don't respect you and don't care if they hurt you. It's the fucking breaks. Women divorce 'em 'cause we can't tame 'em or train 'em or control 'em like we do household pets. End of story. — Terry McMillan

Don't sabotage your own greatness by succumbing to failure! — Terry McMillan