A thought comes into her head: that lately she doesn't ask herself what is possible, but rather what possibilities remain.

— Carol Shields

Beauty takes courage. Courage itself takes courage.

— Carol Shields

Bookish people, who are often maladroit people, persist in thinking they can master any subtlety so long as it's been shaped into acceptable expository prose.

— Carol Shields

Corrie gave Larry's hand an excited, distracted squeeze that said: almost home. They were about to be matter-of-factly claimed by familiar streets and houses and the life they'd chosen or which had chosen them.

— Carol Shields

From surfeit to loss is a short line.

— Carol Shields

Happiness is the lucky pane of glass you carry in your head. It takes all your cunning just to hang on to it, and once it's smashed you have to move into a different sort of life.

— Carol Shields

Have you ever looked at, say, a picture or a great building or read a paragraph in a book and felt the world suddenly expand and, in the same instant, contract and harden into a kernel of perfect purity? Do you know what I mean? Everything suddenly fits, everything's in its place.

— Carol Shields

Here's to another year and let's hope it's above ground.

— Carol Shields

His father, that austere, unfeeling and untutored man, had insisted his sons polish their boots every evening. Fleet has learned to be grateful for this early discipline. It kept him breathing as a boy, provided a pulse, gave order to vast incomprehension. Later he found other ways.

— Carol Shields

How does a poet know when a poem is ended? Because it lies flat, taut; nothing can be added or subtracted. How does a woman know when a marriage is over? Because of the way her life suddenly shears off in just two directions: past and future.

— Carol Shields