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“People don’t gather after a death to mourn, but rather to reaffirm why life matters and to remember to exult in the only one we’ll ever have. We hold funerals, memorials, celebrations—whatever you want to call them—to seek and to find the heart of the matter of this trip we call Life.”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“I wonder if to be human is to know that we can't ever banish pain and ugliness from the world, only learn from it and create something beautiful and good out of it ...”
― Heather Lende, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: Family, Friendships, and Faith in Small-Town Alaska

“I have a friend who says we spend the first half of our life building it and the second half preventing it from falling apart. I’d rather be under construction when I die.”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“Only adults weep with joy. Children don't. They haven't learned how rare moments of true happiness are.”
― Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name

“The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way.â€� Which is a roundabout way”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“Do we feel God’s presence because we are looking for him, or do we feel it because he is looking for us?”
― Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska

“I believe gratitude comes from a place in your soul that knows the story could have ended differently, and often does, and I also know that gratitude is at the heart of finding the good in this world--especially in our relationships with the ones we love.”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“Now I know better. The secret to aging more cheerfully is to play like a child.”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“You don’t have to sing in a choir to see that a group of committed people who care about something that makes life a little brighter, and work hard at it, can accomplish more together than alone, but it helps.”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“What both halves of my heart-mind can agree on is that I am the one who chooses how to respond to the people and situations I encounter everyday.”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“the world could end in any number of ways, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. The only choice any of us has is what to do if we’re still here after it happens. Do we die a little death every day ourselves or do we reach for someone’s hand and dance again?”
― Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska

“True love is above all reliable. So we do the best we can to follow through, and that sometimes, maybe often, especially with our elderly mothers or mothers-in-law (if we are lucky enough to have family elders), we get a little frazzled and cross and want to scream; but we still wait in a doctor's office, or drive to a hair appointment, or play cards all afternoon, or drink sweetened tea when we prefer it plain, and we may think bad thoughts once in a while. And that is _okay_. Better than okay. The wisest women both here and gone have known--and demonstrated-- that our actions speak loudest when it comes to love. They also know we will never regret spending this time, regardless of how we feel about it sometimes, because mothers were once daughters and that's the way life is meant to roll. (p. 140-141)”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“Everyone needs to be needed, wants to be wanted, and loves to be loved.”
― Heather Lende, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: Family, Friendships, and Faith in Small-Town Alaska

“But like most actions that rely on faith, it still took plenty of our own muscle and ingenuity.”
― Heather Lende, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: Family, Friendships, and Faith in Small-Town Alaska

“It is often said that there are no atheists in foxholes. It seems to me that shelled bunkers would be full of skeptics. In the middle of a war it must be harder, not easier, to believe in a good God.”
― Heather Lende, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs

“When our mothers die, we are on our own; there is no one to call for help, no one to blame, and no one left who has a copy of your grandmother’s recipe for the traditional Christmas coffee cake, which you can’t find anywhere. Her”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“While time may not heal, it does give you perspective.”
― Heather Lende, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: Family, Friendships, and Faith in Small-Town Alaska

“There is no secret to being, as Linnus says, in that “first percentile,â€� that minority of young couples who stay together for life. It’s as simple, and as complicated, as keeping that look in your eyes.”
― Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska

“Campfires and birthday candles don't burn forever.”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“There's a Buddhist saying that when your house is done your life is over. I hope Tom works on Camp Weasel forever.”
― Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name

“I realized how critical it is to teach our children that people think differently, and that there are ways to act on our beliefs without demeaning others who don’t believe the same things.”
― Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska

“When is it okay to decide that you don't need to do your best? That you have built enough character for one lifetime?”
― Heather Lende, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: Family, Friendships, and Faith in Small-Town Alaska

“both make the connection with objects from our past, too, and like to live surrounded by old things that wouldn’t pass as antiques and aren’t valuable to anyone except us.”
― Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska

“SLY STONE SANG IT LOUD. We are family. Our hearts are every bit as malleable as stardust turned to gold. Loving one another polishes them.”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“It's as if we are all moving through this world on a big old ship, holding on to one another as we cruise up the generous river of life. The water that floats us is always new, yet it flows in the same direction, over the same old sand.”
― Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name

“If the snow keeps me home from an important meeting, I'll take a walk in it. Shovel my neighbor's stoop. Then build a snowman at the end of the driveway. When was the last time I did that?”
― Heather Lende, Find the Good: Unexpected Life Lessons from a Small-Town Obituary Writer

“the way Emily Dickinson meant when she wrote, “That it will never come again / Is what makes life so sweet.”
― Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska

“Our hearts are every bit as malleable as stardust turned to gold. Loving one another polishes them.”
― Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska

“I want to be like Angie when I die, old and in bed. In my daydream I’m under my own quilts, with a dog on the bed and the familiar view out our bedroom window. Chip is there—I have already decided I have to go first. I don’t think I can live without him.”
― Heather Lende, If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name: News from Small-Town Alaska

“There is something about burying a friend that makes you want to declare what is most important to you in life, and if you're fortunate, that is true love.”
― Heather Lende, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs: Family, Friendships, and Faith in Small-Town Alaska