Laurie Graham Quotes

Laurie Graham

Profession : Journalist

Birth : November 25, 1947

I've been lucky enough to travel widely. When you're based in Europe, it's very easy to go to Madrid or Budapest for the weekend. I also lived in Italy for ten years and now live in Ireland.

Laurie Graham

I'm married to an American, and although we live in Europe, I think of myself as an honorary American.

Laurie Graham

I speak pretty fluent American, though I do so with a strong British accent, and I love America: The scale and the variety of it are astonishing to someone not born there, and I'm convinced that its energy and generosity have somehow rubbed off on me and affected my writing. For the better.

Laurie Graham

Even professional, paid carers aren't always models of saintly behaviour - and they know they can knock off at the end of their shift to go home, take an uninterrupted shower, and have a normal conversation with someone.

Laurie Graham

I hate to think I ever make my husband frightened or unhappy, but I suspect I do.

Laurie Graham

My parents never told me I was beautiful, and for one very good reason. I wasn't. When your child is a tubby, bespectacled little oddity, as I was, it's important not to give them false expectations.

Laurie Graham

The thing about praising beauty is that good looks are an unforgiving task- master, a Forth Bridge of a maintenance job. The passing years present their accounts. Younger models become available.

Laurie Graham

Childhood doesn't have to be perfect, and children don't have to be beautiful. From a bit of grit may grow a pearl, and if pearl production doesn't materialise, the outcome will still be preferable to the shallowness of vanity.

Laurie Graham

In grief, after even the happiest of relationships, we go over things again and again.

Laurie Graham

I think my mother was baffled by me. We were polar opposites. She was shy and retiring. I was over-fond of the limelight. Many times in my life, I was conscious of embarrassing her with my carrying on.

Laurie Graham

My mother was a fastidious and orderly homemaker. I was the messy but creative type. I picture her following behind me through life with a damp rag and an air of exasperation.

Laurie Graham

I know my parents loved me - they certainly did everything they could for me - but displays of affection were kept on a distinctly low flame.

Laurie Graham

Far more than dreading ending up in a care home myself, I dread having to put my husband in one.

Laurie Graham

Caring burns a lot of fuel - psychological and physical, too, if any lifting is involved. The energy tank is soon emptied, and the toll caring takes is well documented. It's called carer burn-out.

Laurie Graham

Once, every woman owned a small mirrored compact, and it was considered normal - sophisticated even - to flip it open to discreetly check for things like nose-glow or lipstick smudge.

Laurie Graham

People invade your space and offend your sensibilities because, to be plain, they couldn't care less about you.

Laurie Graham

It was the Victorians who covered the piano legs and drew a heavy curtain over what a lady got up to in her boudoir.

Laurie Graham

I've always jealously guarded my feminine mystique. I've been married twice, and neither of my husbands has ever seen me put my face on.

Laurie Graham

My husband is leaving me. No dramas, no slammed doors - well, OK, a few slammed doors - and no suitcase in the hall, but there is another woman involved. Her name is Dementia.

Laurie Graham

With Alzheimer's, recent memory is affected first. At the start, you count the memory loss in days, then hours - then in minutes. But there's also an insidious backward creep of deterioration.

Laurie Graham