Top 120 Laurie Frankel Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “This is a medical issue, but mostly it’s a cultural issue. It’s a social issue and an emotional issue and a family dynamic issue and a community issue.”

— Laurie Frankel

102. “Lot of clinics in Bangkok do surgery but mostly for foreigner. Many kathoey here let be. Which parts not what matter. Is soul, how move, how dress, how love, how be. Just like Poppy, I am female soul so do not matter to me or Choochai or sons or daughters or anyone what is under pants. Makes sense?”

— Laurie Frankel

103. “Later, much later, she said the same, that it was love pre first site, that she’d walked around that whole morning and afternoon somehow knowing that this would be the last first date of her life.”

— Laurie Frankel

104. “But by the time those acquaintances became close friends, it was too late. Perhaps there was a perfect moment in between, when you were close enough to tell but not so close it was problematic that you hadn’t done so already, but it was infinitesimal, too fleet and fleeting to pin down, visible not even in hindsight.”

— Laurie Frankel

105. “Rosie appreciated the support but wasn’t sure parenting ever really qualified as brave – or maybe it always did – because it’s not like you had a choice.”

— Laurie Frankel

106. “Do you realize, Rosie said to her mother, that I’m the one who’s suppose to becalming you down about all of this. Not the other way around? I’m the one who’s suppose to be talking you off the ledge. You’re suppose to be panicking and dragging him off to church or something. So few Jews at church these days, said Carmelo. You’re to old to be open-minded and tolerant, said Rosie. I’m too old not to be. She sucked coolly on her cigarette again, then waved at Rosie to punctuate her point.”

— Laurie Frankel

107. “It’s not that Poppy’s the girl and Claude’s the boy. There’s boy and girl in both of them. They both have what they parade and what they hide. It’s that Poppy’s the happy child, and Claude is the sad one.”

— Laurie Frankel

108. “Orion’s butt used to be a tuba,” said Rigel, “and that’s why it makes those noises.”

— Laurie Frankel

109. “Boys and girls, you asked good questions, and you asked them nicely and quietly, so I’m putting a cookie token in our cookie jar to help us earn our cookie party.”

— Laurie Frankel

110. “That was how, whatever else they were, Claude and Poppy became Buddhists for life.”

— Laurie Frankel

111. “It wasn’t so much that she and Penn set out to practice Zen marriage equality and perfect-balance parenting. It was just that there was way more to do than two could manage, but by their both filling every spare moment, some of what needed to got done.”

— Laurie Frankel

112. “Mistake good because you learn, you fix.”

— Laurie Frankel

113. “Penn was a student of narrative and knew that lovers should be wooed, relationships fought for, that anything too easily won was soon lost or else not worth winning.”

— Laurie Frankel

114. “So Grumwald felt his way was, if not firmly paved, at least densely pebbled, and that was as good a start as one could wish for.”

— Laurie Frankel

115. “Children learn many wonderful things in kindergarten. How to line up for lunch. How to use inside voices. How to not push people. Important life skills for sure. I use them every day myself. But they learn other things too: you have to conform, or people might not like you; you have to be the same because different doesn’t feel good. At home, Claude’s loved no matter what. At school, it sometimes feels the opposite: you are not loved no matter what.”

— Laurie Frankel

116. “You can tell anytime,’ Penn said, ’but once people know, they can never unknow.”

— Laurie Frankel

117. “Easy is nice, but it’s not as good as getting to be who who are or stand up for what you believe in. Easy is nice but I wonder how often it leads to fulfilling work or partnership or being.”

— Laurie Frankel

118. “Easy is nice, but I wonder how often it leads to fulfilling work or partnership or being.”

— Laurie Frankel

119. “Knowing what the problem was didn’t help if none of the solutions were available in any case.”

— Laurie Frankel

120. “I like labels because they mean organized and order and control and correct.” “Sometimes they do. And sometimes they just give you the illusion of those things. Giving something a label and putting it in a box makes you feel like you’ve understood it and accounted for it and can keep track of it, and that’s great for things like paperwork or books, but sometimes things get mislabeled or misfiled, and then they get misunderstood or misaccounted for.”

— Laurie Frankel

121. “You’re too old to be open-minded and tolerant,” said Rosie. “I’m too old not to be.” She sucked coolly on her cigarette again, then waved it at Rosie to punctuate her point. Not for the first time, Rosie envied smokers their rhetorical device. “I’ve lived life. I know what’s important. I’ve seen it all by now. You think he’s the first boy I ever saw in a bikini? He’s not. You think your generation invented kids who are different?”

— Laurie Frankel

122. “These are things we all have to grapple with. A five-year-old has much to learn. When people are annoying, it feels good to push them but we mustn’t. Even though it’s often pleasant to shout, others are trying to concentrate. Though we’d always like to be first, sometimes it’s someone else’s turn. And when we behave in a manner other people don’t expect, there will be consequences.”

— Laurie Frankel

123. “It was as if those school years bred a nostalgia so deep into the cells that the body woke to it each fall as naturally as the squirrels in the park began their frenzied harvest, never mind the weather was still fine, the sun still gracing them all.”

— Laurie Frankel

124. “There’s nothing good that can come out of a child being sick.”

— Laurie Frankel

125. “Penn considered how clever it was of him to have birthed a Greek Chorus to hear his tales.”

— Laurie Frankel

126. “Hormones contribute to intelligence and creativity, critical thinking, abstract analysis.”

— Laurie Frankel

127. “Besides, this meant she was going to need wooing after all. He was delighted. Penn was a student of narrative and knew that lovers should be wooed, relationships fought for, that anything too easily won was soon lost or else not worth winning. He suspected she was worth winning.”

— Laurie Frankel

128. “Only once, early on, did Claude wonder, “Carmy?” “Yes, dear?” “Will you love me even if I keep wearing a dress?” “I will love you even if you wear a dress made out of puppies.” Carmelo nuzzled his neck, and he giggled. “I will love you even if you wear a hat made out of toe cheese.” Claude wrinkled his nose. “You will?” “Of course.” “How come?” “’Cause I’m your grandma. That’s what grandmas are for.” “Loving you no matter what you wear?” “Loving you no matter what.”

— Laurie Frankel

129. “The road trip would have been romantic, cathartic maybe, to feel each mile drop behind them, to watch the landscape change and change again, to eat hamburgers in sticky diners and make picnics from sad grocery stores and take over motels so beaten they could afford to stay two to a room and everyone could have his own bed.”

— Laurie Frankel

130. “Not much of what I value in our lives is easy. But there’s not much of it I’d trade for easy either, I don’t think.”

— Laurie Frankel

131. “Night shifts were brutal but easier to schedule around. Sometimes, it was just less painful to forgo sleep than to try to find child care for all the early dismissals and vacations and holidays and staff developments and parent-teacher conference days. It was also true that nights in the ER were often more peaceful than nights at home with her family. Sometimes they even involved less blood.”

— Laurie Frankel

132. “Representation matters not just because it matters that you see yourself in the world but because it matters that you see yourself positively in the world. Representation matters because it matters that you see not-yourself – people who are unlike you, families that are unlike yours, possibilities you hadn’t thought of yet – and it matters that you see not-yourself positively too.”

— Laurie Frankel

133. “Rosie knew this moment from raising four other children to this point already, the one where suddenly your kids know more than you do about something they’ve discovered all on their own, something real and important not just cartoons or video games. Amazing was exactly what it was.” Chap. “Hedge Enemies.”

— Laurie Frankel