Phyllis Theroux Quotes

21 Sourced Quotes

Writing is a deeply spiritual act that can have a profound effect upon the practitioner.

Phyllis Theroux
Writing is not only a reflection of what one thinks and feels but a rope one weaves with words that can lower you below or hoist you above the surface of your life, enabling you to go deeper or higher than you would otherwise go. What excites me about his metaphor is that is makes writing much more than a lifesaving venture.

Phyllis Theroux
My nose remembers more than my eyes. The sharp oily smell of eucalyptus combines with afternoon dust from the hockey field. But my heart feels the different then and now.

Phyllis Theroux
To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything but your heart.

Phyllis Theroux
Everything we are given or learn or possess in any real sense — the ability to play Beethoven sonata, write books, understand the principles of physics — is intended for one thing: to draw us closer to our selves.

Phyllis Theroux
We revisit those places where we experienced love, as pilgrims return to holy places, to be reminded, restored, and reaffirmed by them.

Phyllis Theroux
One of my earliest joys as a parent lay in knowing that at the end of the day I had once again ushered three babies back to their beds, against the odds, unscathed and peaceful. Happiness was a houseful of safe, inert bodies. Actually, it still is.

Phyllis Theroux
Looking at a friend who has had a face lift is like reading a book with half the pages ripped out.

Phyllis Theroux
I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at Creation.

Phyllis Theroux
If there is any reason to single out artists as being more necessary to our lives than any others, it is because they provide us with light that cannot be extinguished. They go into dark rooms and poke at their souls until the contours of our own are familiar to us.

Phyllis Theroux
A party is a slightly artificial event where one learns the rudiments of human behavior at its most admirable: speaking when spoken to, looking somebody in the eye, shaking hands and being friendly under duress.

Phyllis Theroux
Falling silent should be cultivated, the way the woods fall silent in the snow. Messages you can't send any other way can be heard.

Phyllis Theroux
An enlightened person raises the level of the consciousness of the entire community.

Phyllis Theroux
Children are born with imaginations in mint condition, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Then life corrects for grandiosity.

Phyllis Theroux
I was really nothing more than a custodian to a mystery that was beyond my comprehension. I think that's what hooks one on gardening forever. It is the closest one can come to being present at the creation.

Phyllis Theroux
Mistakes are the usual bridge between inexperience and wisdom.

Phyllis Theroux
I can feel my heart growing daily, which has its uncomfortable aspects, as if it could fall with the weight of love and break.

Phyllis Theroux
There were times, in the beginning, when I used my journal as a wailing wall, but I learned not to immortalize the darkness. Rereading it was counterproductive. What I needed was a place in which to collect the light.

Phyllis Theroux
To envy is to draw circles that isolate us from others, to take small, bitter trips that diminish the traveler.

Phyllis Theroux
There is probably no such thing as an innocent question, at least not when a parent is doing the asking.

Phyllis Theroux
It does not matter whether one is at the giving or receiving end of love just as long as one is part of the process in some way. It is only when we become disconnected from the process altogether that we should begin to worry.

Phyllis Theroux