Wiggs Quotes & Sayings

You always look on the dark side of life. I believe in capturing the moment ... Joy is so fleeting. You never know when it might be snatched away. — Susan Wiggs

watched as the earth mother turned into a corporate dominatrix, chewing out the legal counsel — Susan Wiggs

I love you Daddy.
How hard was that to say Why hadn't she said it before Because she wasn't sure she meant it or was she afraid it would be one-sided — Susan Wiggs

I love my life, my family and my friends, and I'm drawn to 'relationship' novels because of their affirming focus on the power of love to heal wounds and transform lives. — Susan Wiggs

Already, Seattle is taking hold of her. She still holds Sedona in the dry tan of her skin and in her hair, but the fine mist of the Northwest is making its way to places she didn't know were parched. — Susan Wiggs

He could not name precisely the special quality she possessed. A glow. An exuberance. An aggressive and determined joy that gave her the courage to push past his defenses, to confront him with unflinching courage, to look into his heart and to see something there worth fighting for. — Susan Wiggs

Acting was all about making yourself feel things-love,rage,euphoria,agony. She had to unlearn those things now. She had to teach herself not to feel. Refusing to feel hurt also meant she numbed herself to joy, but the sacrifice was worth it. — Susan Wiggs

No, this was the kind of moment that made everything stop. You separated it from every other one, pressing the feeling to your heart, like a dried flower slipped between the pages of a beloved book. The moment was made of something fragile and delicate, yet it possessed the power to last forever. — Susan Wiggs

Insults sting but a little when they stem from a man's ignorance. — Susan Wiggs

Mrs. Wiggs was a philosopher, and the sum and substance of her philosophy lay in keeping the dust off her rose-colored spectacles. — Alice Hegan Rice

her home; it just happened to be where she lived. This was the House that Jack Built, she thought, hearing the singsong rhythm of the old children's story in her head. And this was the wife who lived in the house that Jack built. And there was the mistress that screwed the husband that ignored the wife who lived in the house that Jack built.... — Susan Wiggs

Fear and love were sometimes the same thing both necessary unavoidable. Now she understood that it was okay to bleed if you know how to heal. — Susan Wiggs

compassionate people? Would this — Susan Wiggs

Another thing Gran would say was imprinted on Annie's heart - remember the love. When times get hard and you start wondering why you got married in the first place, remember the love. — Susan Wiggs

And if you don't believe memories are worth more than money, then perhaps you've not made the right kind of memories. — Susan Wiggs

No more taking the Lord's name in vain or even in earnest. — Susan Wiggs

We often destroy the world's real wealth to create an illusion of wealth, confusing symbol and substance. — Susan Wiggs

A fawn eats the equivalent of its body weight every twenty-four hours." "How do you know that?" "Read it in a book. I read sixty books last year." "Geez," he said. "Why?" "'Cause there wasn't time to read more," she said with a superior sniff. "Hard — Susan Wiggs

remember the love. — Susan Wiggs

Sometimes if you want something badly enough, you make it happen through sheer force of will. — Susan Wiggs

Teachers are by nature idealists, and they believe anything can be learned. — Susan Wiggs

You have seven writers in your basement?"
Donald nods, signing, "They like it here. There's a poet, a couple of novelists, an opera librettist, an essay writer ... They don't usually make much trouble. — Susan Wiggs

She parked and got out of the car, feeling the wind sweep upward over her, lifting the hem of her jacket, ruffling her hair. She walked to the edge of the cliff and for a long time, stood frozen and stared as though mesmerized by the swirling, white-veined swells that gathered like great fists drawn back for a blow, then smashed themselves against the rocks below, exploding into a spray of diamonds. Some of the spray was so fine that a series of rainbows were thrown up, fleeting and blurred, one after another. The pounding of the sea made a strange and compelling music, driving her to surrender to the feelings inside her. — Susan Wiggs

As a child, she'd been a great reader, finding the ultimate escape within the pages of a story. She learned that opening a book was like opening a set of double doors - the next step would take her inside to Neverland or Nod, Sunnybrook Farm or Mulberry Street. — Susan Wiggs

Pop, why didn't you ever marry again?"
"I was a good husband to your mother," Pop said. "I would not be a good husband to another woman. It would not be fair, because I gave everything I had to my first marriage. Love is like that for some people. — Susan Wiggs

Her whole body flared to life with a fiery blush. Maybe that was why the term "old flame" had been invented. Somebody always got burned. — Susan Wiggs

At the center of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power. — Susan Wiggs

What's difficult to understand about German opera? It's always the same. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love, girl gets devoured by horrible winged creature with claws. — Susan Wiggs

There was something in the way a man held a woman when he was about to let her go. — Susan Wiggs

The time for falling in love was when you were emotionally available and free of cares, when it didn't matter what time you came home or how late you were getting up the next day. When you had hours and hours to spend gazing into each other's eyes and even longer hours making love, uninterrupted. If you wait for the perfect time to fall in love ... it'll never happen. — Susan Wiggs

She caught herself working so hard at mothering that she forgot to enjoy her children. -from ~Homecoming Season~ — Susan Wiggs

That if you never get your hopes up," she said, taking a sip of hot chocolate, "you'll never be disappointed." "Ouch, — Susan Wiggs

Caitlin." Hawkins touched her cheek. "That wasn't quite what I had in mind." "Oh, for heaven's sake," she burst out, "do you not see how silly you're being?" "It's only silly if you continue to shy from me like a maiden. You're the MacBride. You've done worse than kiss an Englishman." His hands held her fast at the arms, and he bent to whisper in her ear. "I won the forfeit." His breath caressed the curve of her ear. "I want to feel the fullness of your lips with my own. I want to slide them open with my tongue and taste the sweetness of your mouth. I want to feel your body pressed to - " Summoning the last of her composure, she said, "You've made your point." His hands lifted to her shoulders. "Well? I'm waiting. — Susan Wiggs

She watched the gap between ship and shore grow to a huge gulf. Perhaps this was a little like dying, the departed no longer visible to the others, yet both still existed, only in different worlds. — Susan Wiggs

You're right. I have no heart because I lost it to you. — Susan Wiggs

one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer - and the other seven will know her. — Susan Wiggs

Writing is a struggle no matter what the genre. — Susan Wiggs

I see the way he looks at you when you're not aware of his gaze. I see the way you care for him. And so when you think he wants you gone, it is not that. He is simply afraid to lose you. — Susan Wiggs

Scary thought - what if I get to know myself and I'm someone I don't want to be? — Susan Wiggs

Honestly, the essence of publishing hasn't changed. Since the days of the cave man carving stuff on the cave walls, people have wanted stories, and storytellers have wanted an audience. That is still the case. The changes are really a matter of format. — Susan Wiggs

Just being a good person doesn't necessarily entitle you to a good life. — Susan Wiggs

The list of side effects was lengthy and horrible. Sonnet had pored over it, along with all the other literature she'd hastily devoured, searching for grains of hope. The worst part of chemo started after the drugs were administered. — Susan Wiggs

I've always loved writing emotionally rich, character-driven novels that explore the way people fall in love and deal with life's triumphs and tragedies. I enjoy writing the contemporary and historical books equally, though perhaps 'enjoy' is the wrong word. — Susan Wiggs

Hearts would have to break and be mended, truths would be revealed, risks would be taken. Which, when he thought about it, was simply the way life worked - messy, unpredictable, joyous, mysterious, hurtful and redemptive. — Susan Wiggs

One afternoon, she went to Washington Square — Susan Wiggs

BACKYARD GARDEN SALAD In wartime, patriotic families cultivated "Victory Gardens" to promote self-sufficiency and help the war effort. 4 cups mixed greens 1/4 cup fresh sprigs of dill 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves 4 large basil leaves, rolled up and thinly sliced crosswise 1 large lemon, halved 1/4 cup fruity olive oil pinch of salt fresh ground black pepper to taste 1 cup toasted walnuts 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese 1 cup fresh edible flowers; choose from bachelor's buttons, borage, calendulas, carnations, herb flowers (basil, chives, rosemary, thyme), nasturtiums, violas, including pansies and Johnny-jump-ups, stock Toss salad greens and herbs in a large bowl. Squeeze lemon juice (without the seeds) over the greens and season with olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss again. Add walnuts and feta and toss well. Divide salad and pansies among four serving plates and serve. (Source: Adapted from California Bountiful) — Susan Wiggs

The pressure of his mouth eased. He drew away, holding her at arm's length. He filled her vision, broad shoulders and shaggy head framed by the crags and cliffs of Connemara. He had a look of astonished delight on his face, while dangerous banked fires smoldered in his eyes. Still gripping her shoulders, he stepped back and said, "Look me in the eye, Caitlin MacBride, and tell me you've been kissed before. — Susan Wiggs

You mustn't touch me." Very slowly, he lowered his hand. "You need to be touched, Caitlin MacBride. You need it very badly." She girded herself with denial. "Even if it were so, I would not need it from an Englishman." "Think again, my love. We're easy with one another despite our differences. Remember our first meeting - the shock of it, the knowing? We could be good for each other." "And when, pray, has an Englishman ever been good for Ireland?" A lazy grin spread over his face. "Even I know that, Caitlin. St. Patrick himself was English born, was he not?" "But he had the heart of Eireann." "So might I, Caitlin MacBride. So might I. — Susan Wiggs

The best honey comes from a source you know, and is processed without heat. Raw, unfiltered honey retains its royal jelly, bee pollen and propolis - three major sources of antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. 1 cup of locally produced, raw organic honey 1 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice Additional water, about 2 cups 2-½ cups water Ice cubes or crushed ice 1 tablespoon dried culinary lavender Combine honey and 2-½ cups of water in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring to dissolve the honey. When the mixture reaches a boil, stir in the lavender and remove from heat. Let the mixture steep for 20 minutes. Strain the lavender from the liquid, then add the fresh lemon juice and an additional 2 cups of water. Use sparkling water if you wish. Pour into glasses full of ice and serve, garnished with a sprig of lavender or mint. [Source: Original] — Susan Wiggs

Methylprednisolone? — Susan Wiggs

Her name was a silent song on his lips. Her love was like a circle in the water, radiating ever outward, inevitably encompassing even the remotest of hearts. — Susan Wiggs

When you're with the person you love, you're home. — Susan Wiggs

The cut was only the beginning. With Goldi acting as art director, a couple of girls in pink smocks swooped in and painstakingly separated strands of his hair and painted them with a noxious substance. Then they carefully encased the locks in foil so he resembled a Star Trek extra. He was placed in a chair where - no lie - they lowered a plastic dome over his head and set it on Bake. Under the plastic dryer-dome, Bo sat there like an abductee and pondered what else his captors had in mind. He wondered when they were going to bring out the probe. — Susan Wiggs

Kids aren't supposed to have to figure out how to be happy. They just are. — Susan Wiggs

During the post-breakdown period, she read books the way an addict swallowed pills. She devoured stories one after the other, trying not to let reality intrude too deeply. — Susan Wiggs

Everybody's in love when they're eighteen. And everybody gets dumped. — Susan Wiggs

To Sonnet, wearing castoff clothing was just another way to make her different from the other kids at school. As if she needed one more thing to make her different. — Susan Wiggs

Unexpected change is like a breath of fresh air
a little brisk at first, but magic for the body and soul. — Susan Wiggs

Just my luck, she thought. Here I am in the middle of nowhere, and Easy Rider comes to my rescue. — Susan Wiggs

She knew the soothing power of a human touch on aching flesh. Knew the strange bond that formed when two creatures united in mutual need, one hurting, the other healing. — Susan Wiggs

louche, wearing a gauzy neck scarf and — Susan Wiggs

Then you agree that you should keep me." With the smug satisfaction of an argument won, he propped his shoulder against the stall door. Her eyes picked him over as if he were a carved goose on a table. "Aye, I'll have to either keep you ... or kill you." "I vote for keeping me." A glint of humor shone in her eyes. "And I shall so long as you behave yourself." "And if I don't behave? If I try to escape?" "I'll hunt you down and kill you." The conviction in her voice chilled him, and yet he felt something else, an ache of pity that a wonderful creature like Caitlin MacBride should be compelled to have the heart of a murderer. "Then you leave me no alternative," he said lightly. "I shall stay. Think of it, Cait, we'll grow old together. We'll walk on the strand and watch the sunset, and you'll sing songs to me in that lovely voice of yours. — Susan Wiggs

San Francisco was her favorite. It was the kind of city where being independent was valued, not pitied or regarded as a problem to be rectified by well-meaning friends. — Susan Wiggs

celebutante lifestyle — Susan Wiggs

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. - Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846 - 1916), American essayist — Susan Wiggs

I know you got your heart broken but I know the heart can heal, too. And I know what it feels like to love again. I love you so much, I can't sleep at night. Sometimes I forget to breathe. And in a hundred years, that's never going to change. — Susan Wiggs

The human heart was such a complex organ, fragile and sturdy all at once. — Susan Wiggs

Maybe you're not meant to remember the details. Just the feelings. Just the lessons. Just the love.
pp274 — Susan Wiggs

happen to know any Russian — Susan Wiggs

Do you feel the magic?" "Aye," he breathed into her salt-dusted hair. "It's all around me, but most especially, here in my arms. — Susan Wiggs

There was something elemental and, all right, fundamentally sexy, about a guy building a fire for a woman. Maybe it went back to caveman times. She felt a natural attraction to a man with the instinct to make a fire for her. — Susan Wiggs

I want you to look at me and see no other than the man you love. I want you to feel a start of pure joy when you awaken in the morning and find me beside you. I want you to wish you could rush the sunset so that we can be together sooner. — Susan Wiggs

Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, "America's greatest contribution to the world is the summer camp." Anyone — Susan Wiggs

Even the most egregious captive state, bound and gagged on her damp bunk, felt eerily familiar to her. With nothing to do but lie there and think of things, she reflected that captivity took many different forms. A woman under the domination of her father or husband was as much a prisoner as a hostage on a boat. She had merely traded one form of servitude for another. — Susan Wiggs

It's funny how much influence our parents have on us." "True. — Susan Wiggs

There's a kind of love that has the power to save you, to get you through life. It's like breathing. You have to do it or you'll die. And when it's over, your soul starts to bleed, Livvy. There's no pain in the world like it, I swear. If you were feeling that now, you wouldn't be able to sit up straight or have a coherent conversation. — Susan Wiggs

For the bee, honey is the ultimate reality. It represents the fulfillment of her life mission, the triumph over her enemies, the continuity of the hive, the justification for working herself to death. Honey is to bees what money in the bank is to people - a measure of prosperity and well-being. But there is nothing abstract or symbolic about honey, as there is about money, which has no intrinsic value. There is more real wealth in a pound of honey, or a load of manure for that matter, than all the currency in the world. We often destroy the world's real wealth to create an illusion of wealth, confusing symbol and substance. - William Longgood, The Queen Must Die — Susan Wiggs

When something is hard, but you do it anyway and get stronger because you did it, that's building character. — Susan Wiggs

There is something about losing your mother that is permanent and inexpressable - a wound that will never quite heal. — Susan Wiggs

Oh, aye. A bit of mist in the air might bring the selkies out to play. The selkies are seal people, you know. — Susan Wiggs

cosine wherry, a wooden rowboat hand — Susan Wiggs

Here's the thing about broken hearts. You can always survive them. Always. No matter how deep the hurt, the capacity to heal and move on is even stronger. — Susan Wiggs

I would forfeit the very surety of my soul to be the man who brings that look upon your face. — Susan Wiggs

In all my novels, a sense of place - not just geographic but social - is a critical element. I have always been drawn to the novels of Edith Wharton, among others, where social dynamics are crucial. Wharton's class consciousness fascinates me, and some of the tension in my books stems from that. — Susan Wiggs

the main character saying things like "In my world, chocolate is a vegetable. — Susan Wiggs

Feed your friends, and their mouths will be too full to gossip, Bubbie used to say. Feed your enemies, and they'll become your friends. — Susan Wiggs

Having a Mac all to himself was pretty amazing. — Susan Wiggs

The undulating terrain was cloaked in lush abundance, the vineyards like garlands of deep green and yellow, orchards and farms sprouting here and there, hillocks of dry golden grass crowned by beautiful sun-gilt houses, barns and silos. And overhead was the bluest sky she'd ever seen, as bright and hard polished as marble.
There was something about the landscape that caught at her emotions. It was both lush and intimidating, its beauty so abundant. Far from the bustle of the city, she was a complete stranger here, like Dorothy stepping out of her whirling house into the land of Oz. Farm stands overflowing with local produce marked the long driveways into farms with whimsical names- Almost Paradise, One Bad Apple, Toad Hollow. Boxes and bushels were displayed on long, weathered tables. Between the farms, brushy tangles of berries and towering old oak trees lined the roadway. — Susan Wiggs

Talent is required, but much of writing is a matter of craft, which develops with time, attention, patience and practice, like playing an instrument or learning to dance. — Susan Wiggs

In addition, Dr. Dannyboy has suggested a fifth element: positive thinking. Pointing out that their breathing, bathing, dining and screwing brought Alobar and Kudra much physical pleasure, and that an organism steeped in pleasure is an organism disposed to continue, he has said that the will to live cannot be overestimated as a stimulant to longevity. Indeed Dr. Dannyboy goes so far as to claim that ninety percent of all deaths are suicides. Persons, says Wiggs, who lack curiosity about life, who find minimal joy in existence, are all too willing, subconsciously, to cooperate with- and attract- disease, accident and violence. — Tom Robbins

What is home? Maybe it's not a place, but a moment in time. When I was safe. Secure. Cared for. Home. It's more than a point on a map. It's a sensation. A feeling of comfort - feet — Susan Wiggs

On Sunday, something washed up on shore. — Susan Wiggs

Wake up & Smell The Hot Chocolate ! ~ Eddie Havens — Susan Wiggs

Her vulnerability to Wiggs was opening her up (as voluntary vulnerability often can ) in unexpected ways. — Tom Robbins

No, my darling. I'll love the woman you keep hidden inside you. You've led men to battle, but never into your heart. Men respect you, they obey you, but they see you as a warrior. You've never had the chance to blossom. — Susan Wiggs

You're never alone when you're reading a book. — Susan Wiggs

You can't rewind life or undo things. — Susan Wiggs

You are TSTL. I beg your pardon. Too stupid to live. — Susan Wiggs

She had always been good at dreaming, but what she had never done before was believe a dream could actually come true. She believed now. The wonder of setting sail created possibilities she had never considered before. — Susan Wiggs

Ever since she was small, she'd found delight and comfort in books. For her, a story was so much more than words on a page. Opening a book was like opening a door to another world, and once she stepped across the threshold, she was transported. When she was reading a story, she lived inside a different skin. — Susan Wiggs