20 Quotes by Ramona Ausubel

She came from people who thought they were too good to run from the cold, too hearty, too real. Fern allowed herself only short dreams of summer, properly earned summer, after winter and after spring.

The children always needed Fern to be a different kind of mother than she had been the week before. They exhausted her and she longed for a break and then she missed them acutely the moment they were out of sight – that was the truth of motherhood.

Life is effortful,” said Mac. “That’s the way it’s supposed to be. It’s good to have work to do.

Love’s job is to make a safe place. Not to deny that the spiny forest exists, but to live hidden inside it, tunneled into the soft undergrasses.

This was a season of worry and joy living side by side in Fern. They did not cancel each other out or blend to create a soft grey. Love could not temper fear and fear could not temper love.

There should be a word for this happiness, she thought. The happiness of nothing extra.

You can love as many and as much as you want. I thought I had to save my love up, that I would run out. It turns out it’s the exact opposite.

How furiously she loved them and how heavy it was to carry that quantity of love, how perilous to care for those delicate bodies in the spinning world.

For heartsickness of the unending variety, befriend a dove. Do not catch it, not even so that you can set it free. Just get down on the ground with bread crumbs on your chest and wait for it to find you interesting.