All I can say is, it's a sort of kinship, as though there is a family tree of grief. On this branch, the lost children, on this the suicided parents, here the beloved mentally ill siblings. When something terrible happens,… — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share Image
“Books are a bad family - there are those you love, and those you are indifferent to; idiots and mad cousins who you would banish except others enjoy their company; wrongheaded but fascinating eccentrics and dreamy geniuses; orphaned grandchildren; and… — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share
“Aunt Helen Beck had many intentions about her death. She was about being dead the way some people are about being British - she… — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share Image
“But you cannot fly away from people who have flown away from you; you cannot fly into your own arms.” — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share Image
Engagements - they are like a prayer before eating, best quick. — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share Image
“Though my love for you is infinitesimal, your eyes are as dewey as any old decimal.” — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share Image
“For us what was killing was how nothing had changed. We'd been waiting to be transformed, and now here we were, back in our… — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share Image
In reference works, as in sin, omission is as bad as willful misbehavior. — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share Image
After most deaths, I imagine, the awfulness lies in how everything’s changed….there’s a hole. It’s person-shaped and it follows you everywhere…. For us what… — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share Image
“I told him that I apologised, that I understood, but really: I am not a museum, not yet, I'm a love letter, a love… — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share Image
“When I was a teenager in Boston, a man on the subway handed me a card printed with tiny pictures of hands spelling out the alphabet in sign language. I AM DEAF, said the card. You were supposed to give the man some money in exchange. I have thought of that card ever since, during difficult times, mine or someone… — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share
“I'm thinking of that Florida lady again, the one who wanted a book about the lighter side of a child's death, and I know: all she wanted was permission to remember her child with pleasure instead of grief. To remember that he was dead, but to remember him without pain: he's dead but of course she still loves him, and… — Elizabeth McCracken Copy Share
