Merle Shain
Merle Shain
Merle Shain was a Canadian author and journalist...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionAuthor
CountryCanada
Merle Shain quotes about
marriage growing-up night
We marry to grow up, to escape our parents and to inherit our share of the world, not knowing who we are and who we will become, so it is left to marriage to make it clear which ones of us are growing in the same directions and which are ships meant to have passed in the night.
marriage loneliness giving
Marriage is supposed to do everything, like Duz, which is more than half its problem. It is said to save us, define us, give us purpose, keep us from loneliness, and incidentally balance our diet and wash our socks, and when it doesn't, we get divorced.
heartbreak running dog
One can't run in a park without a dog or make angels in the snow without a child and there are things one can't do without a lover, so the loss of the lover is like an amputation and the patient goes into shock.
thanksgiving blessing giving
The act is unjustifiable that either begs for a blessing, or, having succeeded gives no thanksgiving.
people pillars sometimes
The people in your life are like the pillars on your porch. Sometimes they hold you up, and sometimes they lean on you. Sometimes it's enough to know they are standing by.
good-luck past years
It's hard to tell our good luck sometimes. Hard to tell sometimes for many years to come. And most of us have wept copious tears over someone or something, when if we'd understood the situation better, we might have celebrated our good fortune insteadOne can never change the past, only the hold it has on you and while nothing in your life is reversible, you can reverse it nevertheless.
anger passion night
Anger is a passion, so it makes people feel alive and makes them feel they matter and are in charge of their lives. So people often need to renew their anger a long time after the cause of it has died, because it is a protection against helplessness and emptiness just like howling in the night. And it makes them feel less vulnerable for a little while.
compassion
Compassion is the thing that leads you gently back to yourself.
world
when you put something good into the world, something good comes back to you.
divorce views grandparent
Perhaps the old view of 'Me breadwinner, you hausfrau' worked for our grandparents, when people obligingly popped off before boring each other to death, but it won't work any longer because we are living too long and divorce is needed today to do what death acomplished more economically before.
cynicism cowardice form
Cynicism is a form of cowardice, a failure of courage to hope.
love-is long understanding
Love is short, forgetting is long, and understanding longer still.
american-musician learns
One often learns more from ten days of agony than ten years of contentment.
american-musician employ hands hearts hire men work
You can employ men and hire hands to work for you, but you must win their hearts to have them work with you.