Top 150 Anita Diamant Quotes (2025 Update)

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

— Anita Diamant

2. “Mountains are where heaven meets earth.”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

4. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

Featured in: Reading Quotes

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

— Anita Diamant

6. “My heart is a ladle of sweet water brimming over.”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

8. “No one would ever call Katherine Walters a pretty woman: her face was strangely flat and one eye was a tiny bit higher than the other. After Flora left, she took off her hat, cut her bangs, and was suddenly striking and stylish, which is actually much better than pretty.”

— Anita Diamant

9. “I’ll give her the whole day off from work – with pay.”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

11. “The more a daughter knows the details of her mother’s life-without flinching or whining-the stronger the daughter.”

— Anita Diamant

12. “Of all life’s pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.”

— Anita Diamant

13. “Sometimes friends grow apart. You tell each other everything and you’re sure this is a person you’ll know the rest of your life but then she stops writing or calling, or you realize she’s really not so nice, or she turns into a right-winger.”

— Anita Diamant

14. “According to the Talmud, if a funeral procession and a wedding procession cross paths, the wedding party goes first. Life is more important than death.”

— Anita Diamant

15. “When a shy person smiles, it’s like the sun coming out.”

— Anita Diamant

16. “Wherever you walk, I go with you. Selah.”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

18. “If you sit on the bank of a river, you see only a small part of its surface. And yet, the water before your eyes is proof of unknowable depths.”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

22. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

23. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

Featured in: Strong Quotes

24. “Why had no one told me that my body would become a battlefield, a sacrifice, a test? Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers?”

— Anita Diamant

25. “Making plans is a game. Life chooses for you.”

— Anita Diamant

26. “Life was sweet in the Valley of the Kings, on the west bank of the river.”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

28. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

29. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

30. “I like the way he danced. And then I like the way we danced together.”

— Anita Diamant

31. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

32. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

33. “We are all born of the same mother.”

— Anita Diamant

34. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

35. “Never apologize for being smart.”

— Anita Diamant

36. “Sometimes friends grow apart. You tell each other everything and you’re sure this is a person you’ll know the rest of your life but then she stops writing or calling, or you realize she’s really not so nice, or she turns into a right-winger. Remember your friend Suzie? But sometimes, it doesn’t matter how far apart you live or how little you talk – it’s still there. That was Filomena and me.”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

40. “A girl should always have her own money so she’s never beholden to anyone.” I.”

— Anita Diamant

41. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

42. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

43. “He was golden and beautiful as a sunset.”

— Anita Diamant

44. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

45. “I will pour out everything inside me so you may leave this table satisfied and fortified. Blessings on your eyes. Blessings on your children. Blessings on the ground beneath you. My heart is a ladle of sweet water, brimming over.”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

47. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

48. “When I look at my eighty-five-year-old face in the mirror today, I think, “You’re never going to look better than you do today, honey, so smile.”

— Anita Diamant

49. “I will remember you in the morning and in the evening, every day until I close my eyes forever. I forgive your every harsh thought of me and the curses you may hurl at my name. And when at last you do forgive me, I forbid you to suffer a moment’s guilt in my name. I ask that you remember only my blessing upon you, Bar-Shalem Re-mose.”

— Anita Diamant

50. “Was Juliet a better poet than Romeo? If Juliet found out about Rosaline, would she still love Romeo? Should Juliet have given Paris a chance? Why is love so dangerous for Juliet? Why are Juliet’s parents so blind? Was the Nurse Juliet’s friend or enemy? Would Juliet have killed herself if she had been twenty-five years old instead of thirteen?”

— Anita Diamant