Richelle Quotes

Is anything truly impossible? Or is it that the path to our goals appears too unclear to follow? It seems to me that if you seek hard enough, pray hard enough, you usually stumble across a scattering of breadcrumbs that marks the trail leading to the goal you once considered beyond your reach.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Me( Notice Me)I was sent here on a journey that has no end.I hear you joke of going nowhere fast.Well, maybe life’s a joke and I’m the foolThat dreams of being first but ends up last.Life’s a trial—a sentence I can’t escape.Confusion and desperation tear me down and turn to hate.There’s so much more to figure out,But it’s growing way too late.If I could answer half the questions in my mind,If I could find the place where I belong,If words were near as strong and deep as the wall of emotions I climbThen sorrow wouldn’t be so wrong.There’s no way to make you understand.An entire symphony could not play the broken notes in one child’s soul.That child screams and no one hears her,Until the tears have dried and now she’s just too old.I don’t want to hear the philosophies, the opinions,The remarks, the horrible reasonings.Words are to pad the mind and fight with the solitude of the heart.Still, silence chills to the bone and tears the soul apart.She never means to hurt or harm, only to belong.To find the truth ‘mid mortal lies, to sing her only song.But someday this race will end, and if she comes in last,I pray the first will look deeper than the others, smile, and then pass.Copyright 1985

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I'm starting to think this world is just a place for us to learn that we need each other more than we want to admit.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Why is it we must suffer the loss of something so dear before we realize what a treasure we had?Why must the sun be darkened before we feel how genuinely impossible it is to live without its warmth?Why within the misery of absence does love grow by such bounds?Why must life be this way?It is a strange existence where such suffering makes us far better people.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Curiosity killed the cat, but not before teaching her that honey bees are not sweet, tweeting birds are slow to react, mice can serve as both toys and food, big dogs like to snuggle, falling isn’t flying, cream drips from lazy cows, water should be avoided at all costs, baths don’t require getting wet, kindness and cruelty often fall from the same hand, and engines remain comfortably warm long after the motor dies.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Some things can't be taught, they can only be discovered.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Life's lessons aren't always new. Often they're the same old worn-out truths offering us greater depths of wisdom and understanding.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Win or lose, good or bad, the experience will change you.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I believe life is an education meant to teach us the need to be better people.  And I believe this learning often takes place through trial and error which may mean being an awful person at times before clearly seeing and grasping the necessity to improve. If you don't agree with me, just ask Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge.  I think Charles Dickens got it quite right.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

For things I am not thankful for―experiences I would never volunteer to relive―I recognize how they have changed me. My depth of compassion and humility, the sincerity of my empathy and understanding, and the duration of my patience have all been refined by bitter suffering. I thank God for the lessons learned. I am a better person for it, but I still abhor those awful trials.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I learn by doing....the same thing over and over and over again countless times.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Far more important than the tribulations and heartaches, the thrills, merriment, and pleasures of life is what you learn from it all. It isn't the tunnel we pass through that matters, it's what emerges on the other side.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

No one is born a sprinter. We all learn to push ourselves up from the floor and then balance before taking that first, wobbly step. It is an individual choice where to go from there.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The irony of life: Realizing a lifetime is barely long enough to figure out how it should have been lived.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I believe the main purpose of life is to accept with gratitude what you've been blessed with so that you may use those gifts to mold yourself into the best person you can possibly be. Learning to discern things of true value from those of little or no worth is part of the process.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The moment a person feels he has nothing left to learn is the moment life prepares to hit him hard enough to correct such ignorance.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I am, for the most part, who I am because my good mother was who she was.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

We grow up opposing our parents only to become like them enough to oppose our children who behave as we once did—a reminder of how dreadful we were toward those now vindicated grandparents. And you thought God had no sense of humor.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Life isn't a lazy cruise on some endless, calm, and temperate sea. Life is a raging ocean with swells and tidal waves that wreck and sink your boat. Life is a series of storms―overcast skies, fierce winds, and pelting rain. You were meant to be immersed in it all―first to float, then swim, and eventually to walk on water.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

What I learn today I shall know forever. Whether or not I remember that I know it is a different story.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Life is learning to take God's hand.....and hold on.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Have you noticed how children never bypass a puddle of water, but jump, splash, and slosh right through it?  That's because they know an important truth: Life was meant to be lived; puddles were meant to be experienced.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Life is a test.  It was designed to be so.  It is where we taste the bitter and the sweet; where we feel pain and pleasure; where we learn right from wrong; where we pass through both darkness and light.  It is a time to make choices.  And through this process we form our characters—some grand and glorious, some barely decent, and others just plain monstrous. 

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

One grateful thought is a ray of sunshine.  A hundred such thoughts paint a sunrise.  A thousand will rival the glaring sky at noonday - for gratitude is light against the darkness.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

If I expect nothing of you, it will be far easier to forgive your offenses than if I place my whole world in your hands.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

You and I were never meant to be together, but we are. Our pairing is not unlike two electrons ignoring natural laws in order to orbit one another. Life now defies reason—quirky but beautiful.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

I felt ashamed for having judged him so harshly without knowing the real boy. His one offense against me―goaded by Charlie’s bullying character―was easy to forgive.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

It is a fight to let go of a past that refuses to withdraw its sticky tentacles from your present.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Forgiving yourself can prove as difficult as licking a scab off your elbow.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

We all suffer ills at the hands of others; however, reactions to these injustices differ like night and day. Many seek to punish the world for their suffering, while some work hard to save the world from experiencing similar grief.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Forgiveness is a revolving door positioned in your path.  You must step through it to move on, but it takes both timing and choice to escape walking circles inside.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

It is a difficult thing―if not impossible―to forgive oneself for foolish errors, not for trampling a life or goring another with sharp horns, but for being the fool who opened the gate and let the bull out, blind to potential consequences.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Forgive and forget is the divine ideal. Grappling with the hurt while biting your tongue and struggling to refuse justifiable vengeance―that's closer to human reality.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Home is

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Sunlight’s warmth on my face awoke me in the morning. I didn’t remember falling asleep or how I came to be in my own bed. But I did recall nightmares. Awful nightmares featuring Gwen.I turned my head to stare out an open window where the sun shone in full splendor, bleaching a clear sky enough to tell it was going to be a beautiful spring day. The air smelled of rain from overnight showers, mixed with a strong floral scent. A large lilac bush outside was responsible for the perfume. I breathed in the clean and fragrant air. My eyelids fluttered, blinking at a stunning reflection of daylight off the glass. The blue beyond gave an exquisite glow to my room. All of it was an invitation to bask in a new day—an invitation I declined because none of that mattered to me. The world might as well come to a dark and ugly end. I saw no reason for beauty or life to go on so long as Gwen was lost. Rolling over in bed, I felt the vice grips wrench at my heart again as I cried myself back to sleep.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

The effects of loss are acute, and unique to each individual. Not everyone mourns in the same way, but everyone mourns.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

A word of consolation may sweetly touch the ear.Now and then a quiet songwill clear the mind of fear.A simple act of kindnesscan ease a load of care.Stories told in memorydiminish all despair.A whispered prayer of comfortdraws angel arms around.Counting blessings, great and small,helps gratitude abound.These acts, all sympathetic,will kindly play their part.But seldom do they dry the tearsshed mutely in the heart.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Raindrops fall from clouds of gray.The fragile flowers grow.Teardrops seem all I can say.They speak of endless woe.Your fingers wipe my grief away.A seed of love you sow.A hardened heart reverts to clay.You mold my love just so.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

Sometimes all you can do is hug a friend tightly and wish that their pain could be transferred by touch to your own emotional hard drive.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

My pain builds like storm clouds―massive, dark, and heavy with teardrops. Moisture falls torrential as if my world is a violent, eternal downpour; however, at long last the source runs dry and the bitter storm does cease. Blue skies dare to glow where the gloom has dissipated. I breathe it in, hoping to cleanse my inner soul. A laden heart tells me the truth: the clear sky is an illusion. Old pain rushes back like a flood, providing means for clouds to form and expand once again until it is too much to bear and the heaviness turns to rain. I cannot find refuge from this woe. It is my never-ending heartache.

~ Richelle E. Goodrich