T. Greenwood Quotes

Tammy Greenwood

T. Greenwood is an acclaimed author whose novels have sold more than a quarter million copies. A four time winner of the San Diego Book Award, she has received grants from the Sherwood Anderson. (T. Greenwood Quotes)

“And I think about how I used to be the one who fixed things. How I used to be the strong one. When did this happen to me? What have I become? Effie”
T. Greenwood
Where I Lost Her

“Da Vinci said, “A painter should begin every canvas with a wash of black, because all things in nature are dark except where exposed by the light.” And so, perhaps, if this day were a painting, I would begin with black. Mermaid Tears By the time Avery woke up, I was sick of painting.”
T. Greenwood
The Golden Hour

“Don’t you hate waking up after the day’s already started?” Jake usually asks, like it’s a race. As though by the time I roll out of bed I’m already lagging behind everyone else, as if I’ll never be able to catch my stride.”
T. Greenwood
Where I Lost Her

“He wreaked havoc, but his path of destruction was invisible. The girls and I were the casualties of an amnesiac.”
T. Greenwood
Bodies of Water

“Hope is really just desire disguised, just desperation, aching, dressed up like a prayer.”
T. Greenwood
Undressing the Moon

“How could it be, how was it possible, when she felt like she was so far away, that the sky was the same?”
T. Greenwood
Rust and Stardust

“How sad was it that grief had a shelf life, he thought. It’s only fresh and raw for so long before it begins to spoil. And soon enough, it would be replaced by a newer, brighter heartache – the old one discarded and eventually forgotten. ”
T. Greenwood
Rust and Stardust

“I feel my skin growing warm. But it isn’t the fact that Gussy told Effie about Eva, about everything that happened, but rather that someone would see beauty in the story. The idea that someone could hear about what happened all those years ago and not be disgusted, horrified, by all the tragedies that followed, that someone could find a sliver of the goodness, the beauty, I cling to is almost more than I can handle.”
T. Greenwood
Bodies of Water

“I thought about things stolen from me. I thought about the thieves I had known.”
T. Greenwood
Nearer Than the Sky

“It didn’t matter where they went, the stars followed. A map of the universe spread out before them.” (T. Greenwood Quotes)
T. Greenwood
Rust and Stardust

“It is too easy lately to drink too much. To love the warm way it numbs. And I feel Jake watching me; he’s counting my drinks too.”
T. Greenwood
Where I Lost Her

“Longing that is deeper than want. It’s not as simple as desire. It’s more like missing something you’ve never had.”
T. Greenwood
Nearer Than the Sky

“Memory is the same as water. It is a still lake bathed in moonlight, a vast ocean, a violent river ready to carry you away. It can calm you or it can harm you; it is both more powerful and weaker than you’d think. It is a paradox.”
T. Greenwood
Bodies of Water

“My mother taught me how to find grace in wreckage. She taught me not how to reassemble, but how to rearrange. The stained-glass pictures she made were certain evidence that things can be broken and put back together, and that the mended thing will be more beautiful than the original.”
T. Greenwood
Undressing the Moon

“My mother, stuck in Two Rivers with a head full of unfulfilled dreams, escaped every chance she got via the Two Rivers Free Library – her library card both a passport and necessary currency for her travels.”
T. Greenwood
Two Rivers

“People say we are defined by the choices that we make.”
T. Greenwood
Two Rivers

“Recollection of fear can be stronger than the original fear itself. Similarly, bliss is sometimes more vivid when recollected. How else do you explain longing? Longing for what has already passed. That’s the real pain.”
T. Greenwood
Breathing Water

“She was swept up in the cheery and excited swell of these girls, which carried her down North 7th Street toward Federal. They were like bees, she thought, buzzing and fairly harmless alone, but thrumming and dangerous as a group. She was caught up in the magic of this swarm as they made their way to the Woolworth’s.”
T. Greenwood
Rust and Stardust

“Sometimes I felt like the mundane details of our lives were the only things tethering me to the world. I could hold onto them – distractions necessitating action. They gave me a sense of purpose. If not for the leaky faucet, the sandwiches, the bills, I might not know what to do with my hands.”
T. Greenwood
Two Rivers

“Sometimes things need to get broken”
T. Greenwood
Undressing the Moon

“That’s the way with sentimental things: it’s the memory the junk conjures that’s valuable, not the junk itself.”
T. Greenwood
Undressing the Moon

“The Chinese philosopher Mencius believed that man is innately good. He argued that anyone who saw a child falling into a well would immediately feel shock and alarm, and that this impulse, this universal capacity for commiseration, was proof positive that man is inherently good.” (T. Greenwood Quotes)
T. Greenwood
Two Rivers

“The inevitable and irrevocable consequences of their quiet cruelty. They were just kids, just girls then. They didn’t understand that a single act of careless unkindness would have repercussions long after”
T. Greenwood
Rust and Stardust

“The secret to happiness is counting your blessings while others are adding up their troubles.”
T. Greenwood
Bodies of Water

“There is no day or night in a hospital, there is only now.”
T. Greenwood
Breathing Water

“This is one other thing I know: without autumn, there is no end. Without red and gold and orange there is no finality, no conclusion. Without the sudden shift in the air, without the scent of apples and the crisp chill of morning, summer could go on forever. Without fall, summer lingers. There is a marvelous limbo where I live now, without the changing of seasons. No blazing display to signify the end of everything good. Perhaps this is what drew me to California. A place where time is suspended.”
T. Greenwood
Bodies of Water

“This is the thing about a lie: over time, it not only obscures the truth but consumes it. Those who pursue veracity (those dogooders, those seekers) see truth not as an abstract thing but something concrete. Strong, vivid, with an unassailable right to prevail. But those who fight for it, who fight in the name of it, do not understand that truth is anemic, weak. Especially in the hands of an accomplished liar. Especially over years. A lie, in collusion with time, can overpower the truth. A good lie has the power to subsume reality. A good lie can become the truth.”
T. Greenwood
The Golden Hour

“This is what I know: memory is the same as water. It permeates and saturates. Quenches and satiates. It can hold you up or pull you under; render you weightless or drown you. It is tangible, but elusive.”
T. Greenwood
Bodies of Water

“We lived among people whose poverty could be seen in the length of their faces, in their tired speech and in the heaviness of their eyes.”
T. Greenwood
Undressing the Moon