Eleanor Brown is an American novelist, anthologist, editor, teacher, and speaker. She is the New York Times and international bestselling author of novels The Weird Sisters and The Light of Paris.
Our destiny is in the way we were born, in the way we were raised, in the sum of the three of us.
You may have lost your way more than a little bit, but I believe you can find your way back. That's the trick. Finding your way back.
Hurts and disappointments can hold gifts.
There is much made in the psychological literature of the effects of divorce on children, particularly as it comes to their own marriages, lo those many years later. We have always wondered why there is not more research done on the children of happy marriages. Our parents' love is not some grand passion, there are no swoons of lust, no ball gowns and tuxedos, but here is the truth: they have not spent a night apart since the day they married. How can we ever hope to find a love to live up to that?
We wear our names heavily. And though we have tried to escape their influence, they have seeped into us, and we find ourselves living their patterns again and again.
Clutter is not just physical stuff. It's old ideas, toxic relationships and bad habits. Clutter is anything that does not support your better self.
Your own Fear is the greatest obstacle you will ever face on your journey. Let your Faith be bigger than your Fear.
There are times in our lives when we have to realize our past is precisely what it is, and we cannot change it. But we can change the story we tell ourselves about it, and by doing that, we can change the future.
There is no problem a library card can't solve.
She never managed to find herself in these books no matter how hard she tried, exhuming traits from between the pages and donning them for an hour, a day, a week. We think in some ways, we have all done this our whole lives, searching for the book that will give us the keys to ourselves, let us into a wholly formed personality as though it were a furnished room to let. As though we could walk in and look around and say to the gray-haired landlady behind us, "We'll take it. "
Self-care is not selfish. You cannot serve from an empty vessel.
A highly cultivated taste, a taste that is knowledgeable and eclectic, is likely to be exciting and provocative, a personal taste at its highest level.
The question to ask is what will satisfy you? What will bring you peace? And perhaps the answer to those is in asking yourself when you were last happy.
Every room has a mood or personality. . . and it is this that one desires to develop.
Allow yourself to experience fully every step of the journey, both the joy and the pain. You're alive. Greet the moment at hand with a grateful heart.
Self-care isn't selfish (it is a gift to all concerned). You can't serve from an empty vessel.
We were never organized readers who would see a book through to its end in any sory of logical order. We weave in and out of words like tourists on a hop-on, hop-off bus tour. Put a book down in the kitchen to go to the bathroom and you might return to find it gone, replaced by another of equal interest. We are indiscriminate.