Tracey Garvis-Graves Quotes

“Always choose love. Always choose the adventure. You’ll never regret it.”

“He cupped my face in his hands and wiped my tears with his thumbs."Better?""Yes."He looked into my eyes and said, "I'll never leave you alone, Anna. Not if I can help it.”

“Maybe that's how it starts. You stumble upon something that helps you cope, fills a void. Makes you feel something different than what you currently feel. You know in the long run it probably won't be good for you, but you do it anyway. Tell yourself you can handle it.”

“You named the chicken, Chicken?" She looked embarrassed. "When we decided not to kill it, I got attached.”

“I knew nothing. Now I've seen what a raw deal lots of other people like Krystal get. And it's not their fault. Not their choice. People don't get to choose what body they're put into. Like, people get born into bodies in the middle of a genocide war in Darfur, and they don't get to worry about how tall they are or whether they'll ever be able to row. They're too busy worrying about how they're going to stay alive for another day.”

“We are given to the great, for great purpose, to great ends. We are given to the grave, for grave purposes, to grave ends.”

“Sending everything they touch to the grave is what they do, but they don't see it as a grave mistake, yet.”

“Washingtonians love the "So-and-so is spinning in his grave" cliché. Someone is always speculating about how some great dead American would be scandalized over some crime against How It Used to Be. The Founding Fathers are always spinning in their graves over something, as is Ronald Reagan, or FDR. Edward R. Murrow is a perennial grave spinner in the news business (though in fact, Murrow was cremated).”

“But, Aunt... I don't want to go to the grave site set aside for me a few years ago at the ancestral grave site. I don't want to go there. When I lived here and woke up from the fog in my head, I would walk by myself to the grave site set aside for me, so that I could feel comfortable if I lived there after death. It was sunny, and I liked the pine tree that stood bent but tall, but remaining a member of this family even in death would be too much and too hard. To try to change my mind, I would sing and pull weeds, sitting there until the sun set, but nothing made me feel comfortable there. I lived with this family for over fifty years; please let me go now.”

“I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army.Visiting Kathy's grave was the less dramatic of the two.”