Anita Diament quotes:

November is Jewish book month, so Jewish Community Centers all around the country have book fairs where they invite authors and sell books in advance of the holidays.

Until very recently men and women inhabited very separate spheres. There was always interconnection, passion, love. But men and women didn't hang out at the end of the day and chat about what their day was like at the office.

The Sabbath is a weekly cathedral raised up in my dining room, in my family, in my heart.

My early childhood was spent in Newark, New Jersey, but my family moved to Denver when I was 12.

My husband, Jim, converted to Judaism just before our wedding.

The more I do bookstores, the more people come up to me from church groups. I spoke at Pittsburg State College and had 2 or 3 ministers and book groups from a couple of churches.

I never wanted Mary Poppins to be my nanny. I wanted to be her when I grew up.

The real Mary Poppins got lost when Hollywood turned her into a cream puff.

I have a 10-year track record of writing for the Jewish community.

Shakespeare in Love... such smart writing of an alternative view of history, and such beautiful acting. Like most Americans, I'm a sucker for the accent.

One of my favorite poets, Neruda, writes close to the bone. Though I know only a little Spanish, I like to compare the Spanish and English lines and see how the translator worked.

Since 1985, I have written about contemporary Jewish practice and the Jewish community.

As a journalist I'm comfortable doing library research, and I did a lot! I had a fellowship at Radcliff for a year which gave me access to the Harvard system.

One of his tears fell in my mouth, where it became a blue sapphire, source of strength, source of strength and eternal hope.

Right now, I'm Writing song lyrics. Experimenting with a play. Toying with an idea for a documentary. I hope one of these will eventually be launched into the light of day.

I tell writers to keep reading, reading, reading. Read widely and deeply. And I tell them not to give up even after getting rejection letters. And only write what you love.

Whatever your relationship is to your sacred tradition in the West, you have some relationship to the Bible if only through the names of the characters.

My six handbooks to Jewish life and lifecycle events mostly followed the trajectory of my adult Jewish life.

I got nice rejections explaining that historical fiction was a difficult sell. But I kept trying.

I love many kinds of music: world music, jazz, classical, pop.

Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers?

Mountains are where heaven meets earth.

There's nothing quite like a real . . . train conductor to add color to a quotidian commute

Egypt loved the lotus because it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved.

I lived through a classic publishing story. My editor was fired a month before the book came out. The editor who took it over already had a full plate. It was never advertised. We didn't get reviewed in any major outlets.

The painful things seemed like knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.

One of my great secrets was knowing I had the power to make her smile.

It's a good thing babies don't give you a lot of time to think. You fall in love with them and when you realize how much they love you back, life is very simple.

on the day that the intlligence and talents of women are fully honored and employed, the human community and the planet itself will benefit in ways we can only begin to imagine.

The more a daughter knows the details of her mother's life [...] the stronger the daughter.

I like the way he danced. And then I like the way we danced together.

Egypt loved the lotus becuase it never dies. It is the same for people who are loved. Thus can something as insignificant as a name-two syllables, one high, one sweet- summon up the innumerable smiles, tears, sighs and dreams of a human life.

It is terrible how much has been forgotten, which is why, I suppose, remembering seems a holy thing.

I pray I die before they day comes when I do not know if my sons are infants or grandfathers.

I would have stayed forever within the garden of Re-mose's childhood, but time is a mother's enemy.

Making plans is a game. Life chooses for you.

It's a wonder that any mother ever called a daughter Dinah again. But some did. Maybe you guessed that there was more to me than the voiceless cipher in the text. Maybe you heard it in the music of my name: the first vowel high and clear, as when a mother calls to her child at dusk; the second sound soft, for whispering secrets on pillows. Dee-nah.

The other reason women wanted daughters was to keep their memories alive.

I wanted to cry, but I realized that I was too old for that. I would be a woman soon and I would have to learn how to live with a divided heart.

If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully. Stories about food show a strong connection. Wistful silences demonstrate unfinished business. The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother's life - without flinching or whining - the stronger the daughter.

I moved my arms through the water, feeling them float on the surface, watching the waves and wake that followed my gesture. Here was magic, I thought. Here was something holy.

They sang the words in unison, yet somehow created a web of sounds with their voices. It was like hearing a piece of fabric woven with all the colors of a rainbow. I did not know that such beauty could be formed by the human mouth. I had never heard harmony before.

I could not get my fill of looking. There should be a song for women to sing at this moment or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name that moment.

I am so honored to be the vessel into which you pour this story of pain and strength.

If you want to understand any woman, you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully.

Of all life's pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.

Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. Of all life's pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.

My heart is a ladle of sweet water brimming over.

In Egypt, I loved the perfume of the lotus. A flower would bloom in the pool at dawn, filling the entire garden with a blue musk so powerful it seemed that even the fish and ducks would swoon. By night, the flower might wither but the perfume lasted. Fainter and fainter, but never quite gone. Even many days later, the lotus remained in the garden. Months would pass and a bee would alight near the spot where the lotus had blossomed, and its essence was released again, momentary but undeniable.

Weeping is terrible for the complexion" said Leonie, holding Shayndel close, "but it is very good for the soul.

The story it told was unremarkable: a tale of love found and lost- the oldest story in the world. The only story.

Wherever you walk, I go with you. Selah.

He was golden and beautiful as a sunset.

It was one of those perfect fall days when the air is cool enough to wake you up but the sun is also kissing your face.

There's something almost adolescent about Whitman's paean to everything that was and remains good about America.

Biblical names are hot again.

The Bible - it's sort of the other person in the room. There's this book, the reader, and the Bible.