89 Quotes by Carol Shields

To be a romantic is to believe anything can happen to us.

This is a secretive age. Our secrets are our weapons. Think of South Africa, those clandestine meetings. Think of the covertness of families. Think of love. How else can we express mutiny but by the burial of our unspoken thoughts?

A thought comes into her head: that lately she doesn't ask herself what is possible, but rather what possibilities remain.

People who work in libraries, like those in bakeshops, ought to be made peaceful and happy by their surroundings, but they almost never are.

...she herself loved the character of Elizabeth Bennet. "I must confess that I think her as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know.

The men, her husband and sons, leave for the quarry at seven o'clock sharp and return at five. What do they imagine she does all day? It makes her shiver to think of it, how not one pair of eyes can see through the roof and walls of her house and regard her as she moves through her dreamlike days, bargaining from minute to minute with indolence, that tempter.

I don't know how to get things started... It's like there's this great big wheel I've got to start rolling only I don't seem to have the muscles to get it going.

Whenever I meet anyone new, I don't say, "Tell me about your belief system." I say, "Tell me about your average day".

In a long and healthy life, which is what most of us have, there is plenty of time.