Robin Schwarz

“I was marching to the beat of my own drummer, and I was clearly out of step with reality.”

“The nighttime sky is all about yesterday. The light that you're seeing from the stars happened millions of years ago. Looking at the night sky is like looking at the past. But the morning sky, on the other hand, is right now. It is in the present and holds the hope of a brand new day and so many new opportunities-- to live, to be happy.”

“Love was poetry in its purest form. It existed when it did, and there was nothing that could match it's truth, its mystifying magnetism, its unequaled emotion. Love was a perfectly written sentence without using sound, and unparalleled array of visual harmony without using color. You created it, and it was there to have and to hold without your ever actually being able to see it. It just was.”

“She didn't want pity. Just to love a man and have a man love her. This was nothing to apologize for or feel weak or needy about. It just was.”

“She didn't want to love save her, but to add to what was already good.”

“But most important, she had broken through that invisible wall of terror that surrounded her, and lived to tell the tale.”

“Unfortunately, there's no getting around it: people have to work for their happiness. We go into battle every day, and we have to work to be happy. It just isn't handed over to us, as much as we wish it was.”

“She wished she could pitch a tent among the stars and wait for God. That way she'd be even closer to hearing the answers when he finally whispered them in her ear.”

“Remember, pain is just the messenger dat happiness is comin', Miss Charlotte. So beez happy.”

“It had been so many years since Charlotte had experienced the sensation of being held in someone's arms. But tonight, between the music and the moon and the unaccountable black magic of the Southern air, she was embraced in the spirit of everything that was good in this world. And she felt free.”

“Mazy Watts, Charlotte, and a chorus of others who slowly gathered to the porch that night and sang until the sun came up. Maybe thirty people showed, maybe more, from who knows where, to sing, to praise, to give thanks, to ask for forgiveness, to ask for salvation, to lament, to exalt, to grieve, to accept, to weep, to live, to die, to sing the gospel. It was as if church were open all night under the stars.”

“Life hands us lessons, and my lesson was to face this awful situation and grow from it, Blossom. I thought love had been taken away from me, but it hadn't been. I was still the same person who had loved Mr. Feingold and my old aunts and my cousins and my friends. I still ahd love inside of me, and I still had it to give. ”

“At my very lowest, just when I believed unhappiness would eat me alive, I surrendered. I didn't suddenly become happy all at once; it took time. But I grew through the pain, grew to a place where I finally found understanding, and through understanding I found peace.”

“A little sadness is good for everyone. It's da only way ya gets to happiness. If you happy all da time, you gots nuttin' to compare it wit. No, sorrow is a gift, Charlotte. You takes it, you tip your hat to it, an' den ya moves on. But ya gots to acknoledge it or else it will have ya fo breakfast. Give sadness its due and move on.”

“Life is like a tasting plate. You have to try everything...at least once.”

“Find the love inside of yourself, and the rest will follow. I promise you this with every inch of my being. I know this much is true, and I've got the scars to prove it.”