Best Nan Quotes & Sayings

My chest tightens: seeing him so upset breaks my own heart. 'Don't you ever wish you could make that bit go away?" I say, feeling angry at the past. 'That you could erase those painful memories, forget they every happened, just remember the happy times you had together?'
'You must never say that,' he reprimands sternly.
'But why not?' I look at him in surprise.
'Because it's the bad memories that makes you appreciate the good ones. Don't ever wish them away. it's like your nan always used to say, "You need both the sun and the rain to make a rainbow". — Alexandra Potter

He reaches for a few strands of my hair, twining them around his finger. "You busy later?"
"I was supposed to go to a meet-and-greet in Fairport with Mom, but I told her I needed to study for SATs."
"She believed this? It's summer, Sam."
"Nan's got me signed up for this crazy prep simulation. And . . . I might have told Mom when she was a little distracted."
"But not intentionally, of course."
"Of course not," I say.
"So if I were to come see you after eight, you'd be studying."
"Absolutely. But I might want a . . . study buddy. Because I might be grappling with some really tough problems."
"Grappling, huh?"
"Tussling with," I say. "Wrestling. Handling."
"Gotcha. Sounds like I should bring protective gear to study with you." Jase grins at me.
"You're pretty tough. You'll be fine. — Huntley Fitzpatrick

NaN isn't equal to anything, not even itself, so, — Eric Freeman

It is the eye that discovers the mystery of light, not only the moon and the stars and the vast splendours of the Aurora, but the endless changes the earth undergoes under changing lights. — Nan Shepherd

Nan was shocked. "What a jerk! Mina, you must feel awful. He didn't try to take advantage of you, did he? I'm so mad- I want to go searching for him and give him a piece of my mind, and a kick in the rear. And Brody, why did you bring such a loser for Mina to date? — Chanda Hahn

There was one knight," said Meera, "in the year of the false spring. The Knight of the Laughing Tree, they called him. He might have been a crannogman, that one." "Or not." Jojen's face was dappled with green shadows. "Prince Bran has heard that tale a hundred times, I'm sure." "No," said Bran. "I haven't. And if I have it doesn't matter. Sometimes Old Nan would tell the same story she'd told before, but we never minded, if it was a good story. Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to — George R R Martin

We were watching telly the night Nan burnt the house down. — Celine Kiernan

The sins of the Midwest: flatness, emptiness, a necessary acceptance of the familiar. Where is the romance in being buried alive? In growing old? — Stewart O'Nan

Most of my food memories are of my Nan cooking Sunday dinners - roasts of meat with lots of vegetables. I suppose I cook what's comforting and dishes that make me feel good. — April Bloomfield

An opportunity lost may have motivated us to find a satisfying alternative. Adversity or suffering may have taught us certain important skills. Some writers have felt new appreciation for their lives after surviving a serious illness or disability. A fortunate outcome does not invalidate the unfortunate aspect. — Nan Merrick Phifer

Ever since Eve gave Adam the apple, there has been a misunderstanding between the sexes about gifts. — Nan Robertson

Oh, aren't you the cutest? Yes, you are! You're the sweetest thing since cotton candy, Nan was saying. The pups yipped and crawled over each other in an attempt to lick the glass window where her hand rested. Before long, a cute red-haired employee named Greg, spotted Nan's interest and offered to bring the puppies to the viewing pen. — Chanda Hahn

I was told the men who found me searched for my companion, Nan," Bridget said, the hint of a question in her voice. "Aye, they did." Mora began to braid Bridget's hair. "If they couldnae find her, lass, she wasnae there." "So strange, isnae it? Where would she go? As I see it, she had but two choices when the thieves attacked. She either died with the others or fled." "If she had fled, Jankyn would have been able to see that and followed her trail." "It was dark. He may have missed whate'er trail she left." "Nay. Jankyn could track a wee mousie in the dark. But, it wasnae so verra dark, was it? Moon was full. — Hannah Howell

In the wall there are many doors. Be patient, search with diligence, for one will open to your key. And oh, the land beyond is very fair. — Nan Gilbert

The best part of a party is getting dressed to go. — Nan Kempner

It was the ultimate cautionary tale, the moral being Don't fall, as if they were made of glass. In a sense they were
their fragility was irrefutable, medically proven
and yet Emily detested the inevitable rundown of accidents and tragedies, the more fortunate clucking their tongues and counting their blessings, all the while knowing it was just a matter of time. She didn't need to be reminded that she was a single misstep from disaster, especially here, without Henry, surrounded by the survivors of an earlier life. — Stewart O'Nan

We envy people we love for being always in their own loved company ... — Nan Fairbrother

The large black slugs ... come out at dusk. Enormous slugs. As big as crocodiles. So huge we need a gun to shoot them. And by the end of the summer, if they go on growing, we shall have to go out in pairs together for protection. — Nan Fairbrother

As a fiction writer, my favorite tools are my imagination and the peculiar opportunities offered by different points of view. — Stewart O'Nan

Walking in mist tests not only individual self-discipline, but the best sort of interplay between persons. — Nan Shepherd

A collection of plants is not a landscape, any more than a list of choice words is a poem. The merit is in the design, not the material it is expressed in, and the best designs, like the best poems, make ordinary material significant by its arrangement. — Nan Fairbrother

The sorrows we imagine are more profound and inconsolable than real life leaves us time for. — Nan Fairbrother

My Nan had a plastic hip put in, but I thought she should have replaced it with a Slinky, 'cause if she fell down the stairs again ... — Steve Williams

Why was he drawn to complicated women, or were all women
all people, finally
complicated? — Stewart O'Nan

To know, that is, with the knowledge that is a process of living. — Nan Shepherd

The camera is as much a part of my everyday life as talking or eating or sex. — Nan Goldin

Separation by death must finally be choked down,
but separation in life is a long anguish,
Chiang-nan is a pestilential land;
no word from you there in exile.
You have been in my dreams, old friend,
as if knowing how much I miss you.
Caught in a net,
how is it you still have wings?
I fear you are no longer mortal;
the distance to here is enormous.
When your spirit came, the maples were green;
when it went, the passes were black.
The setting moon spills light on the rafters;
for a moment I think it's your face.
The waters are deep, the waves wide;
don't let the river gods take you. — Du Fu

Nobody sounds like that! Mom, Aunt Nan, it won't work. No way is he ever, ever, ever going to blend in. And his ... you know ... his shoulders are all wide and he's all tan and looks Superman strong ... and ... "
"Anything else? Should I turn around? — Anne Eliot

They should."
"Should be like a wood bee," she said.
It was a private joke, a mocking appreciation of the slipperiness of even the simplest hope, a nonce catchphrase like so many others lifted from favorite movies or TV shows that served as a rote substitute for conversation and bound them like shut-in twins, each other's best and, most often, only audience. — Stewart O'Nan

There is a stage with people we love when we are no longer separate from them, but so close in sympathy that we live through them as directly as through ourselves ... we push back our hair because theirs is in their eyes. — Nan Fairbrother

And someone else wrote me, "What I want is to know your own experience of illness."

Why the interest?

People on their ailments are not always interesting, far from it. But we all hope for a - must I say the word - recipe, we all believe, however much we know we shouldn't, that maybe somebody's got that recipe and can show us how not to be sick, suffer and die. — Nan Shin

Perhaps the way with any obsession is to ignore it simply. Not to fight it, since it draws strength from any contact with us, whether hostile or friendly ... — Nan Fairbrother

She wouldn't come back. She hated me. She hated Nan. She hated my mom. She hated her father. She wouldn't come back here ... but God, I wanted her to. — Abbi Glines

There were about thirty of them, I think - all women; all seated at tables, bearing drinks and books and papers. You might have passed any one of them upon the street, and thought nothing; but the effect of their appearance all combined was rather queer. They were dressed, not strangely, but somehow distinctly. They wore skirts - but the kind of skirts a tailor might design if he were set, for a dare, to sew a bustle for a gent. Many seemed clad in walking-suits or riding-habits. Many wore pince-nez, or carried monocles on ribbons. There were one or two rather startling coiffures; and there were more neckties than I had ever seen brought together at any exclusively female ensemble. — Sarah Waters

Shoulder the sky,'" said Nan smiling. "Do you know A. E. Housman's poems? I think it helps a lot to find that other people have troubles, and understand what it feels like to be unhappy. Poets seem to know a lot about unhappiness. Here's something that has helped me." She hesitated for a moment and then quoted the lines: "The troubles of our proud and angry dust Are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale." "'Shoulder — D.E. Stevenson

I don't like coming home. It keeps me from being nostalgic, which by nature I am. Even before the plane begins its descent, I find myself dreading the questions left unanswered by my childhood. — Stewart O'Nan

1. A Cup of Tea
Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), recieved a university professor who came to inqure about Zen.
Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.
The professor watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"
"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your up? — Nyogen Senzaki

If there is an audience out there for me, I want them to be surprised when the next book comes out. — Stewart O'Nan