Top 150 Anita Diamant Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “The real Mary Poppins got lost when Hollywood turned her into a cream puff.”

— Anita Diamant

52. “I wish I had more to tell of my grandmothers. It is terrible how much has been forgotten, which is why, I suppose, remembering seems a holy thing.”

— Anita Diamant

53. “I am so honored to be the vessel into which you pour this story of pain and strength. For all these years, no daughter could have made me happier or more proud than you. Now that I know who you are and what life has cost you, I am in awe that I number you among my beloved.”

— Anita Diamant

54. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

55. “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 the details of her mother’s life – without flinching.”

— Anita Diamant

56. “THE COURTSHIP of Oliver Younger and Polly Boynton began on the day he brought John Stanwood to yank out two of Tammy’s rotten teeth. Oliver was fourteen at the time, and though he’d gotten his height, his voice was still changing and he was far too shy to look Polly square in the eye as she stood, half hidden, in the doorway of her father’s house. She.”

— Anita Diamant

57. “She approved. “A girl should always have her own money so she’s never beholden to anyone.” I said that was very modern of her, but she didn’t think so. “As far as I can tell, common sense hasn’t been in fashion for a long time.”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

59. “I’m still embarrassed and mad at myself. But after seventy years, I also feel sorry for the girl I used to be. She was awfully hard on herself.”

— Anita Diamant

60. “Jacob made Laban agree to sacrifice two fat lambs and a kid to the god of his father, as thanks for the bounty. Leah baked raised cakes from the precious stock of wheat for the sacrifice, too, which was carried out as Jacob directed. In the manner of his fathers, he burned entire loaves and all the choice parts of the animals rather than a few portions. The women muttered among themselves at the waste.”

— Anita Diamant

61. “Even a broken clock is right twice every day.”

— Anita Diamant

62. “You should always be kind to people, Ava. You never know what sorrows they’re carrying around.”

— Anita Diamant

63. “Don’t let anyone tell you things aren’t better than they used to be.”

— Anita Diamant

64. “And yet the idea that women are human beings remains news, a message that requires constant, clear, and artful reinforcement in a world that continues to undermine the confidence and abilities of girls and women. On the day that the intelligence and talents of women are fully honored and employed, the human community and planet itself will benefit in ways we can only begin to imagine.”

— Anita Diamant

65. “In the moment before I crossed over, I knew that the priests and magicians of Egypt were fools and charlatans for promising to prolong the beauties of life beyond the world we are give. Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. All of life’s pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.”

— Anita Diamant

66. “Remember this moment, when your mother’s body heals every trouble of your soul.”

— Anita Diamant

67. “The New Jewish Wedding How.”

— Anita Diamant

68. “The chain connecting mother to daughter was broken and the world passed to the keeping of men, who had no way of knowing.”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

70. “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.”

— Anita Diamant

71. “Death does not linger where he is defeated.”

— Anita Diamant

72. “Why is it you get more tired from sitting and doing nothing than from running around doing too much?”

— Anita Diamant

73. “I always felt I understood myself better after we spent time together. And the way she laughed at my wisecracks and thanked me for my opinions made me think maybe I was as smart and funny as she said i was.”

— Anita Diamant

74. “She told us that social work was a young profession still finding itself. She called it a “creative science” and said that, in her opinion, the best social workers were intelligent and compassionate, and while she could give us ideas and tools to help our fellow man, she couldn’t teach us how to put ourselves into another person’s shoes. She said, “If you don’t already know how to do that, you should drop this class and consider another line of work.”

— Anita Diamant

75. “Just as there is no warning for childbirth, there is no preparation for the sight of a first child.”

— Anita Diamant

76. “You know, Ava, it’s good to be smart, but kindness is more important. Oh dear, another old-lady chestnut to stitch on a sampler. Or maybe one of those cute little throw pillows.”

— Anita Diamant

77. “Her robes were purple – the color of royalty and holiness and wealth.”

— Anita Diamant

78. “You know, Ava, it’s good to be smart, but kindness is more important.”

— Anita Diamant

79. “Other people were turning in their papers and I still hadn’t written a word. I was starting to panic until out of the blue I remembered my father saying that Jews answered questions with more questions. So that’s what I did.”

— Anita Diamant

80. “Mimba had been right about white people. The best thing was to treat them like ghosts and cannibals, not to be trusted. But sometimes, a white ghost would look at you straight on, with a full smile, eye to eye. The smile of the eye was the secret, Mimba had taught her. You had to be careful always, but every now and again you could act as though they had souls, too. Easter was one like that.”

— Anita Diamant

81. “People don’t talk so much about sad memories.”

— Anita Diamant

82. “When I started teaching, I remembered how he talked to us, and you know what? If you treat every question like you’ve never heard it before, your students feel like you respect them and everyone learns a lot more. Including the teacher.”

— Anita Diamant

83. “Rachel could not even be promised, she told her husband. The girl might look ready to marry, but she was still unripe, having not yet bled. My grandmother claimed that Anath would curse the garden if Laban dared break this law and that she herself would find the strength to take a pestle to her husband’s head again.”

— Anita Diamant

84. “Mameh would complain about America; how the apples had no taste.”

— Anita Diamant

85. “You know the saying about how revenge tastes better cold? Well, it tastes just as good warm.”

— Anita Diamant

86. “I always felt I understood myself better after we spent time together.”

— Anita Diamant

87. “Biblical names are hot again.”

— Anita Diamant

88. “My world got very small, the way it always does when someone in your family is sick.”

— Anita Diamant

89. “I would be a woman soon and I would have to learn how to live with a divided heart.”

— Anita Diamant

90. “I need a bathroom. And there are way too many people around here for us to.”

— Anita Diamant

91. “She said, “Hiking is the same thing as walking, only hotter and twice as far as you want to go. But usually, you’re glad you went.”

— Anita Diamant

92. “That time, I knew she was asking for an opinion. “My mother thinks I am.” She said mothers were right to be concerned for their.”

— Anita Diamant

93. “When I think back, I get mad at what they did to those poor men. Ernie must have had PTSD – they called it shell shock – and the doctors told him to keep it all bottled up inside. They didn’t know any better, but it was like treating syphilis with candy bars.”

— Anita Diamant

94. “How could she find the courage to kill herself when she had no courage for life?”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

96. “There’s something almost adolescent about Whitman’s paean to everything that was and remains good about America.”

— Anita Diamant

97. “The flavor of gratitude is like the nectar of the hive.”

— Anita Diamant

98. “We didn’t call it the First World War when it was happening.”

— Anita Diamant

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

— Anita Diamant

100. “No girl is ever happy with her own hair, is she?”

— Anita Diamant