A Tale of Five Cities & Other Memoirs
Joyce Elbert
Top 10 Best Quotes
“While it took much longer than I ever anticipated to see my writing efforts pay off, it finally happened so that at the age of forty-three I was my own woman, beholden to no one.”
“What saved us from becoming hard-nosed or callous was that we really liked each other, while remaining totally mystified by each other.”
“The last time I saw Paris, my heart was definitely not young and gay. Bitter and disillusioned would be more like it.”
“Like many mind-altering drugs, alcohol had shown me where I wanted to go but alcohol couldn't get me there. It didn't have the power. I needed sobriety to connect me to stronger forces than my earthbound self. Whether these forces are God or nature is beside the point. Call them what you will. I feel that I instinctively knew I wasn't here alone or by sheer brute chance, but to live my life with as much courage and joy as possible before I returned to where I came from. I think that's really the goal.”
“In the windowpane I caught a glimpse of myself: fat, badly-dressed, the seams on my skirt about to burst, my hair in need of a trim, my shoes run down at the heels, yet for once I didn't give a damn. I thought of how anxious I had been about this city, its intimidating chic, its hostile shopkeepers, Simone de Beauvoir's opinion of me, my clothes, my hairdo, my weight, my inability to speak the language properly. "Bonjour, Madame," I said to the proprietor in my fractured French. "Deux litres du lait, s'il vous plait." Why do we always worry about the wrong things, I wondered?”
“I still remember typing the title page on my manual Smith-Corona with clammy hands and a racing heart. When I came to the words, "A novel by
“I had never been productive in beautiful, serene settings. I needed noise, activity, some kind of external energy to get me going.”
“Even after a few years, the charm hadn't disappeared. I still enjoyed finding the first tulip of spring, seeing a buck race across my lawn, feeding cracked corn to birds, gathering kindling for the stove, walking on a blustery beach in December. I even enjoyed boarding up the windows in preparation for a hurricane or going out at night in a robe and pajamas to sweep falling snow off my car before it froze solid. I liked being exposed to the elements as I never was in New York. I think it's good to know the difference between what exists naturally and what is manmade. In cities we lose sight of these basic differences and, I believe, in the end, of ourselves.”
“Despite all of my moaning and groaning about the romantic disasters that continued to befall me, I knew if I were ever forced to choose I would take a good book over a good relationship any day of the week.”
“Corny as it may sound today, I was used to thinking of men in terms of guidance and protection but suddenly no man felt I needed his guidance or protection since I had the aura of money to protect me.”
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