Barbara Holland Quotes

Quotes about:

• Gloom we have always with us, a rank and sturdy weed, but joy requires tending.

  Barbara Holland

  Weed, Joy, Sturdy

  47 Copy quote

• Subtly, in the little ways, joy has been leaking out of our lives. The small pleasures of the ordinary day seem almost contemptible, and glance off us lightly...Perhaps it's a good time to reconsider pleasure at its roots. Changing out of wet shoes and socks, for instance. Bathrobes. Yawning and stretching. Real tomatoes.

  Barbara Holland

  Real, Shoes, Roots

  19 Copy quote

• moral indignation is a pleasure, often the only pleasure, in many lives. It's also one of the few pleasures people feel obliged to force on other people.

  Barbara Holland

  People, Morality, Pleasure

  4 Copy quote

• If we have a decent sort of cat to begin with, and have always treated it courteously, and aren't cursed with meddling, bullying natures, it's a pleasure to let it do as it pleases. With children, this would be wicked and irresponsible, so raising children involves a lot of effort and friction. They need to be taught how to tie their shoes and multiply fractions, they need to be punished for pocketing candy in the grocery store, they need to be washed and combed and forced to clean up their rooms and say please and thank you. A cat is our relief and our reward.

  Barbara Holland

  Bullying, Children, Cat

  Barbara Holland (1989). “Secrets of the Cat: It's [sic] Lore, Legend, and Lives”

  4 Copy quote

• Anyone who has raised more than one child knows full well that kids turn out the way they turn out - astonishingly, for the most part, and usually quite unlike their siblings, even their twins, raised under the same flawed rooftree. Little we have done or said, or left undone and unsaid, seems to have made much mark. It's hubris to suppose ourselves so influential; a casual remark on the playground is as likely to change their lives as any dedicated campaign of ours. They come with much of their own software already in place, waiting, and none of the keys we press will override it.

  Barbara Holland

  Children, Sibling, Kids

  4 Copy quote

• In the taverns all was amiable and easy, but the coffeehouses were cauldrons of edgy malcontents.

  Barbara Holland

  Taverns, Easy, Cauldrons

  Barbara Holland (2008). “The Joy of Drinking”, p.34, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  4 Copy quote

• For some of us, the soul is resident in the sole, and yearns ceaselessly for light and air and self-expression. Our feet are our very selves. The touch of floor or carpet, grass or mud or asphalt, speaks to us loud and clear from the foot, that scorned and lowly organ as dear to us as our eyes and ears.

  Barbara Holland

  Eye, Feet, Light

  7 Copy quote

• However long you have a cat and however plainly he lays his life open before you, there is always something hidden, some name he goes by in a place you never heard of.

  Barbara Holland

  Cat, Names, Long

  Barbara Holland (1994). “Secrets of the Cat: Its Lore, Legend, and Lives”, Ivy Books

  6 Copy quote

• Dogwoods are great optimists. Daffodils wait and see, crouching firmly underground just in case spring doesn't come this year, but dogwoods have faith.

  Barbara Holland

  Spring, Years, Waiting

  Barbara Holland (1997). “Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: The Case for Cows, Orchards, Bake Sales, & Fairs”, Harcourt

  12 Copy quote

• Are you seeing a psychiatrist?' as a conversation opener would nowadays earn you a punch in the nose, but for fifty years it was a compliment. It meant, 'One can plainly see you are sensitive, intense, and interesting, and therefore neurotic.' Only the dullest of clods trudged around without a neurosis.

  Barbara Holland

  Years, Interesting, Noses

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• The thing to remember is that children are temporary. As soon as they develop a sense of humor and get to be good company, maybe even remember to take the trash out and close the refrigerator door, they pack up their electronic equipment and their clothes, and some of your clothes, and leave in a U-Haul, to return only at Thanksgiving.

  Barbara Holland

  Children, Doors, Clothes

  Barbara Holland (1996). “One's Company: Reflections on Living Alone”

  4 Copy quote

• A catless writer is almost inconceivable. It's a perverse taste, really, since it would be easier to write with a herd of buffalo in the room than even one cat; they make nests in the notes and bite the end of the pen and walk on the typewriter keys.

  Barbara Holland

  Writing, Cat, Animal

  Barbara Holland (1994). “Secrets of the Cat: Its Lore, Legend, and Lives”, Ivy Books

  7 Copy quote

• True ownership of anything requires time.

  Barbara Holland

  Ownership

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• War was ... the chief or maybe the only source of patriotism, and many a politician, from prehistory up to this morning, unified a discontented citizenry by pointing out a national danger and declaring war on it.

  Barbara Holland

  Morning, War, Politician

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• Sometimes, with luck, we find the kind of true friend, male or female, that appears only two or three times in a lucky lifetime, one that will winter us and summer us, grieve, rejoice, and travel with us.

  Barbara Holland

  Friendship, Summer, True Friend

  Barbara Holland (1996). “One's Company: Reflections on Living Alone”

  4 Copy quote

• By and large, people who enjoy teaching animals to roll over will find themselves happier with a dog.

  Barbara Holland

  Dog, Teaching, Cat

  Barbara Holland (1994). “Secrets of the Cat: Its Lore, Legend, and Lives”, Ivy Books

  7 Copy quote

• Recreational talking is, along with private singing, one of our saddest recent losses. Like singing, talking has become a job for trained professionals, who are paid considerable sums of money to do it on television and radio while we sit silently listening or, if we're truly lonely and determined, call the station and sit holding the phone waiting for a chance to contribute our two cents' worth.

  Barbara Holland

  Lonely, Jobs, Loss

  4 Copy quote

• No doubt about it, solitude is improved by being voluntary.

  Barbara Holland

  Solitude, Doubt, No Doubt

  Barbara Holland (1996). “One's Company: Reflections on Living Alone”

  4 Copy quote

• To extract the fullest flavor of our drinking house, we needed to spend serious evening time there, slowly coming to know the bartender and the regulars, their joys and sorrows.

  Barbara Holland

  Drinking, House, Joy

  Barbara Holland (2008). “The Joy of Drinking”, p.23, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  4 Copy quote

• Life, after we'd had a few millennia to observe it, turned out to be dreadfully unfair, so we invented sports.

  Barbara Holland

  Sports, Unfair

  7 Copy quote

• The nostalgic notion of the family orchards is lovely - all that wholesome fruit for our forebears to sit on the back steps biting into - but basically we were growing it to drink.

  Barbara Holland

  Lovely, Growing, Biting

  Barbara Holland (2008). “The Joy of Drinking”, p.2, Bloomsbury Publishing USA

  4 Copy quote

• My friends and I were all deathly afraid of our fathers, which was right and proper and even biblically ordained. Fathers were angry; it was their job.

  Barbara Holland

  Jobs, Father, My Friends

  "Barbara Holland, Defender of Small Vices, Dies at 77" by William Grimes, www.nytimes.com. September 13, 2010.

  4 Copy quote

• The United States government, in figuring our gross national product, defines 'durable goods' as anything that will last three years.

  Barbara Holland

  Government, Years, United States

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  4 Copy quote

• New York was where we wanted to live when we were finally grown up, and drink martinis and stay out past bedtime.

  Barbara Holland

  New York, Past, Bedtime

  Barbara Holland (1999). “Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories”, Harcourt

  8 Copy quote

• The trouble with American History is that you don't remember it, and why should you? Nobody does.

  Barbara Holland

  History, Doe, Remember

  6 Copy quote

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