Top 60 Diane Chamberlain Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “All the love in the world doesn’t put food on the table.”

— Diane Chamberlain

2. “No matter how many people care about you, she thought, if you can’t be open with them about who you truly are, you’re still alone.”

— Diane Chamberlain

3. “I guess when the world’s crumbling around you the only way to survive is to comfort yourself,” he said.”

— Diane Chamberlain

4. “You’re supposed to help people, even if it’s hard to do. Especially if it’s hard to do.”

— Diane Chamberlain

5. “Sometimes, though, you could do the right thing and still feel sick with doubt.”

— Diane Chamberlain

6. “Feelings are never right or wrong,” she said after a moment. “They just are.”

— Diane Chamberlain

7. “Every family has a story, and I love that those stories are etched in sand rather than granite. That way we can change them. We can bury the lies and embrace the truth. And we can move forward.”

— Diane Chamberlain

8. “We can’t always have what we want in life. I should know that by now.”

— Diane Chamberlain

9. “Now I knew that an emotional affair was even more dangerous. It created a need to share every thought and feeling with another person. It seduced you into being entirely vulnerable while still feeling entirely safe.”

— Diane Chamberlain

10. “Sometimes it was hard to express how much you loved someone. You said the words, but you could never quite capture the depth of it. You could never quite hold someone tightly enough.”

— Diane Chamberlain

11. “There was something about the never-ending vastness of the sea and sky that usually gave me comfort, reminding me that in the enormity of the universe, my problems, no matter how painful, were very, very small.”

— Diane Chamberlain

12. “It’s just that I’ve learned that somebody’s appearance doesn’t always match what’s going on inside him. You can’t look at a guy’s face and see his demons.”

— Diane Chamberlain

13. “The cost of doing something would be terrific; the cost of doing nothing even greater.”

— Diane Chamberlain

14. “Sometimes coloring outside the lines can cost you. Only you can figure out if it’s worth it.”

— Diane Chamberlain

15. “You could block things from your mind for years at a time. You could make them go away because you know that if you let them in, the pain could nearly kill you.”

— Diane Chamberlain

16. “And I knew I would nevr have that everything’s-right-in-my-world feeling again.”

— Diane Chamberlain

17. “There are too many silly rules in our lives,” she said, “and our lives are far too short to pay attention to them.”

— Diane Chamberlain

18. “I’d been a terrific student. I hadn’t wasted a moment of my time in school, and I knew plenty about healing the troubled mind. But no one had taught me a thing about healing the soul.”

— Diane Chamberlain

19. “There was something real breakable about Mary Ella and I was always afraid if I touched her in the wrong spot, she’d crack.”

— Diane Chamberlain

20. “Was it possible to love people you had never met, I wondered...”

— Diane Chamberlain

21. “Patti Callahan Henry seamlessly combines mystery, family love, and personal journey all in one engrossing tale. From the intriguing beginning to the touching ending, The Stories We Tell is filled with the warmth, heart and compassion that have become the trademark of her novels.”

— Diane Chamberlain

22. “Religion seems to have twisted the idea of God into a way to control people.”

— Diane Chamberlain

23. “You got dealt some crappy cards. But you’re the one who has to decide how to play them.”

— Diane Chamberlain

24. “It was me – the weak-willed, easily seduced, insecure girl I’d become. I was the obstacle I’d be carrying around with me for the rest of my life.”

— Diane Chamberlain

25. “Maybe I had more wrinkles than I would if I hadn’t spent so much of my life outdoors, but I didn’t care. It was a privilege to grow old, and not everyone got to enjoy it. I was grateful for every minute I was given.”

— Diane Chamberlain

26. “Organized religion was not important to him, he said. It was more important how people behaved in their daily lives than what they did on Sunday.”

— Diane Chamberlain

27. “Devil, worked with Henry Allen and the day laborers, and it.”

— Diane Chamberlain

28. “But somethings are just too important to let fear stand in the way.”

— Diane Chamberlain

29. “Perhaps now that she’d told the story, it would lose its power over her. She hoped she would never have to repeat it to anyone ever again.”

— Diane Chamberlain

30. “I think the important thing about making a decision is just to make it. Otherwise you can go nuts thinking about the pros and cons.”

— Diane Chamberlain

31. “When you see a picture of the ocean, it’s cut off at the edges. You know it goes on and on to the right and on and on to the left, but you never really know how it feels to see that until you actually do see it.”

— Diane Chamberlain

32. “Okay.” I smiled, although I was not doing okay at all. My calm exterior was an act. Inside, I was falling apart.”

— Diane Chamberlain

33. “My life sucked, and it would catch up to me, and I’d just crack.”

— Diane Chamberlain

34. “It seemed like all she did these days was wait.”

— Diane Chamberlain

35. “It’s amazing what you’ll do for your child, isn’t it?”

— Diane Chamberlain

36. “Every single person who comes into your life, from a doctor to a trash collector, can teach you something if you let them.”

— Diane Chamberlain

37. “Studying the stars makes you come to grips with your insignificance pretty quickly.”

— Diane Chamberlain

38. “You’re a jumper. He’s a thinker.”

— Diane Chamberlain

39. “Absolutely,” she said. “Artists use them.”

— Diane Chamberlain

40. “More often than not, family stories turn out to be etched in sand rather than granite. Even the parts we think are true – even the parts about ourselves – crumble.”

— Diane Chamberlain

41. “If you have a friend, a good friend, a woman you love, and you learn she’s done something abominable, do you stop loving her?”

— Diane Chamberlain

42. “Conversation that was lifeless, hollow, dry as bone.”

— Diane Chamberlain

43. “But the truth is, sometimes kids – and adults – seem to wait until their relatives are out of the room to go. It’s like they don’t want to distress them more than they have to.”

— Diane Chamberlain

44. “One thing I was absolutely sure of was his love. Love made any problem solvable.”

— Diane Chamberlain

45. “I’d married a near stranger because I felt like I had no choice. When you’re young, you have more choices than you’ll ever again have in your life, yet sometimes you can’t see them. I’d truly been blind.”

— Diane Chamberlain

46. “I don’t like religion, to be honest. Religion seems to have twisted the idea of God into a way to control people.”

— Diane Chamberlain

47. “Facing her fear turned out to be the only hard part.”

— Diane Chamberlain

48. “You’re trying to paint things as either black or white,” he said. “As either good or evil. It’s never that neat.”

— Diane Chamberlain

49. “What do I want now? I want to be treated with the respect I deserve in the current VA system and not be retraumatized. I want the men who did this to me to be punished and if that isn’t possible, I want reassurance what happened to me will never ever happen to another woman in the Armed services. I want some restitution of the damage I have.”

— Diane Chamberlain

50. “Well, a marriage can look healthy on the outside and be loaded with problems inside.”

— Diane Chamberlain