Thank you, Nora

If you frequent this blog, you know I love a good quote...or several. Nora Ephron, one of my favorite writers passed this week, and I want to honor her by sharing a little of her trademark charm and wit. She had such a wonderful way of writing about real women in a way that made the rest of us feel better about ourselves. Her characters were always charmingly disheveled, insecure, a little off center; never the prettiest, smartest most-talented - but those "flawed"cast of characters showed us a much grander sort of perfection where truth, honestly and a lot of humor trump the more shallow attributes every time. Not only in fiction, but in our own lives as well. When asked about about her characters, she said simply "I write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are." Here are but a few of my favorite quotes from her books and movies:

You've Got Mail:

“Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small - and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void."

From When Harry Met Sally:

I love that you get cold when it’s 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

Heartburn: Her character Rachel says to her husband during labor: "I don't want to do it honey. Can't we get somebody else to do it?"

Julie and Julia: Paul's toast to Julia " You are the butter to my bread and the breath to my life."

And from her essays and book "I Feel Bad About My Neck" 

“When your children are teenagers, it’s important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you.”

"With any child entering adolescence, one hunts for signs of health, is desperate for the smallest indication that the child's problems will never be important enough for a television movie."

"My mother wanted us to understand that the tragedies of your life one day have the potential to be comic stories the next."

“Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women.” 

“Oh, how I regret not having worn a bikini for the entire year I was twenty-six. If anyone young is reading this, go, right this minute, put on a bikini, and don't take it off until you're thirty-four.” 

And who can forget her tirade about hair color costs and how time consuming it is? "Where hair dye is concerned, being blonde is practically a career!"

"Maintenance is what you have to do just so you can walk out the door knowing that if you go to the market and bump into a guy who once rejected you, you won't have to hide behind a stack of canned food. I don't mean to be too literal about this. There are a couple of old boyfriends whom I always worry about bumping into, but there's no chance--if I ever did--that I would recognize either of them. On top of which they live in other cities. But the point is that I still think about them every time I'm tempted to leave the house without eyeliner."

(and saving the best for last)

“Here are some questions I am constantly noodling over: Do you splurge or do you hoard? Do you live every day as if it's your last, or do you save your money on the chance you'll live twenty more years? Is life too short, or is it going to be too long? Do you work as hard as you can, or do you slow down to smell the roses? And where do carbohydrates fit into all this? Are we really all going to spend our last years avoiding bread, especially now that bread in American is so unbelievable delicious? And what about chocolate?"