Doris Grumbach Quotes

Talk uses up ideas. Once I have spoken them aloud, they are lost to me, dissipated into the noisy air like smoke. Only if I bury them, like bulbs, in the rich soil of silence do they grow.

Old age is somewhat like dieting. Every day there is less of us to be observed.

My old friend, water, my good companion, my beloved mother and father: I am its most natural offspring.

one keeps one's friends better when one is alone. The corollary to this is that one loses one's friends, slowly, when one sees them too often or when they visit for too long a time.

Praise requires constant renewal and expansion.

What others regard as retreat from them or rejection of them is not those things at all but instead a breeding ground for greater friendship, a culture for deeper involvement, eventually, with them.

A hand up is worthier than one's own fist grasping a higher rung of the ladder.

Writers are entirely egocentric. To them, few things in their lives have meaning or importance unless they give promise of serving some creative purpose.

We were determined by public opinions of us. Would we think we existed without outside confirmation? And how long would we live apart from others before we began to doubt our existence?

My eyes glaze over at a writer solving tiny problems.

Talk uses up ideas. ... Once I have spoken them aloud they are lost to me dissipated into the noisy air like smoke. Only if I bury them like bulbs in the rich soil of silence do they grow.