Katherine Center Quotes

“Nobody was perfect. Not even close. And everybody had wrinkles from smiling and squinting and craining their necks. Everybody has marks on their bodies from years of living- a trail of life left on them. Evidence of all the adventures and sleepless nights and practical jokes and heartbreaks that had made them who they are.”

— Katherine Center

“Because the truth was, there was a dark underbelly of terror to motherhood. You loved your children with such an overwhelming fierceness that you were absolutely vulnerable at every moment of every day: They could be taken from you. Somehow, you could lose them. You could stop at the corner to buy a newspaper when a drunk driver veered onto the sidewalk. You could feed your child an E. coli-tainted hamburger. You could turn your head for a second while one darted out into the street. The threats to your child were infinite. And the thing was, if any of your children's lives were ruined, even a little bit, yours wold be, too.”

— Katherine Center

“A good man buys you tampons when you run out. He does the dishes. He makes you coffee before you're awake in the morning. He listens to you when you're talking, even if it's about home decor. He goes out of his way to touch you, even if it's just your hand. He doesn't call it 'babysitting' when he looks after his own children. He calls you from work just to hear your voice. And he always thinks you're beautiful, even
no, especially
when you don't.”

— Katherine Center

“And I was grateful. For all the things that had brought me to this moment, and for every single thing that would follow.”

— Katherine Center

“Anything was possible. Everything was uncertain. But I knew one thing for sure: I'd bounced back before, and I would do it again and again and again. Because that's the only choice there is. And as many things as I still had to lose, I had just as many more left to find.”

— Katherine Center

“Something good was happening. My life was rising from the ashes, and the sight of it left me feeling something like hopeful.”

— Katherine Center

“I'd tried so hard to make a perfect, untouchable life for myself. But trouble finds you. Tragedy finds you. And we keep trying anyway. We hope for the best. We believe we can make something for ourselves- something good that will last- even though, at the exact same time, we know we can't.”

— Katherine Center

“Really, when I look back on it, I did exactly what I had set out to do. I changed my life. I woke myself up. I rediscovered passions of every variety. I forced myself to take a little time. I found a way to bring some of who I used to be into who I was.”

— Katherine Center

“However, the trouble with getting what you've always wanted is that once you have it, you have to worry that you'll lose it.”

— Katherine Center

“It's my battle cry: Appreciate Everything!”

— Katherine Center

“It had not occured to me to mourn losing those things until now. I had done each of those things, somewhere along the way, for a last time - without realizing it was the last time. And even after I knew that I was no longer a child, somehow I'd assumed those things could have come back to me. Or that I could have gone back to them. But watching the movies on this day, I became aware of infinite losses.”

— Katherine Center

“Her's what I tell myself now. That it's vital to learn how to make the best of things. That there is no tenderness without bravery. That if things hadn't been so bad they could never have gotten so good. And that it's always better to have what you have than to get what you wanted. Except for this: Every now and then, when you are impossibly lucky you rise above yourself-and get both.”

— Katherine Center

“That was the tricky part. You poured inordinate amounts of time and attention and affection into your kids, but the result was indirect. You didn't point out a cat to your one-year-old and then watch him, minutes later, say 'Cat.' Instead, you pointed out a hundred cats to your one-year-old and then, one day, watched him point to a cat and say 'Mama.”

— Katherine Center

“There is no question that the objects that surround us impact our experience of the world.”

— Katherine Center

“It's not how you wanted it, but it's how it is”

— Katherine Center

“I don't think trying to be happy means you can never be sad," I said. "Right?”

— Katherine Center

“It just seems to me there's enough pain in the world-and not nearly enough pleasure. I guess once you've had enough kidney stones, hot candle wax on the nipples seems less appealing.”

— Katherine Center

“Well, for example, happy people are more likely to register joy than unhappy people. So if you take two people who have experienced a day of, say, fifty percent good things and fifty percent bad things, an unhappy person would remember more of the bad.”

— Katherine Center

“I don't want my kids to be like me. I want them to be better than me.”

— Katherine Center

I'd love to paint our roof white - it's so hot down here in Texas! - and I'd love to have a rainwater collection system to save rain runoff for later. I also love to fantasize about keeping chickens in the backyard.

— Katherine Center

“We are big composters. We compost everything - bread, tea bags, coffee grounds. I even dump out my old coffee in the garden. We keep a mixing bowl on the counter and just fill it up as the day goes along, then dump it in the mulch pile before dinner and wash it with the dinner dishes.”

— Katherine Center

“I have an affection for tangible objects, like books and pages, but people sure do seem to love their Kindles! We're definitely in the middle of a revolution that will determine how people find, read, and experience stories.”

— Katherine Center

“I felt like I had never really heard of a story that reflected the stuff I was going through as a mom. I came up with an idea for a story about motherhood that I would want to read.”

— Katherine Center

“I have to go.'
'Just be careful about your expectations..'
'I want her to apologize.'
'Sweetheart,' Jean said, 'your mother is never going to apologize ... Go see her if you need to. But remember who she is. Going to your mother for understanding is like going to the hardware store for bread.”

— Katherine Center

“You can't just wish strength for yourself. Or wisdom. Or resilience. Those things have to be earned.”

— Katherine Center

“We are only as great as our struggles. We only become who we are in the face of them.”

— Katherine Center

We build our lives in moments, and even the ones we can't remember become the story of who we are.

— Katherine Center

“Don't let anyone convince you that love doesn't matter.”

— Katherine Center

“We are at our finest when we take care of each other.”

— Katherine Center

“It's so easy to think that your strengths don't matter.”

— Katherine Center

“Look for beauty in everything.”

— Katherine Center

“We're looking for stories that speak to us. We're looking for stories that connect us with something true. But, instead, a lot of the time we get strippers. All I'm saying is, when boys are writing the stories, the percentage of strippers is bound to go up. And real stories about real women kinda don't get written at all.”

— Katherine Center

And despite everything I know now, I still believe, as I did when I was little, that there is an entire universe of things that my mother knows that I don't. I still believe that nothing truly bad can ever happen if my mother is around. I know it's not true. But still. It is true.

— Katherine Center

“We all carry our mothers inside us.”

— Katherine Center

Our lives disappear, even as we live them.

— Katherine Center

“Maybe the past is supposed to fade-and that's actually a kindness of human memory.”

— Katherine Center

That's what just hit me: How you really can't have everything. You have to give up the old to get the new. You can't be the child and the mom at the same time. You can't be your young self and your old self at the same time. You can't know what you know now and feel the way you did then. You can't, you can't, you can't.

— Katherine Center

“It's vital to learn how to make the best of things.”

— Katherine Center

People are always beautiful when you love them.

— Katherine Center

The eyes see everything through the heart.

— Katherine Center

“Beauty comes from tenderness.”

— Katherine Center

My goal is to try to be as happy as I can - going through every day just as it is.

— Katherine Center

“Success is doing the right thing for who you are.”

— Katherine Center

Writing a novel is a lot like reading one.

— Katherine Center

“All my main characters are people I'd love to sit around having coffee with. They are people who will tell you honestly about the things that scare them and worry them and trouble them. Because those moments of connection between women-when they really decide to be honest with each other about their lives-are some of the best things in life.”

— Katherine Center

“I like to write about people who are real and likeable. I like to write about people who tell their stories in that close and intimate voice we use with best friends. I love the closeness and honesty and vulnerability that come from characters who can talk that way.”

— Katherine Center

“I guess that's the upside of not being young anymore ... You know from experience that the struggle always leads, in some way, to something better.”

— Katherine Center

“If you feel lucky, then you are.”

— Katherine Center

“Nothing that doesn't push you past your limits can change your life. It's true of work, it's true of parenting, and it's true - a hundred times over - of love.”

— Katherine Center

“You are writing the story of your only life every single minute of every day.”

— Katherine Center