Top 33 Patti Davis Quotes

I grew up in this era where your parents‘ friends were all called aunt and uncle. And then I had an aunt and an aunt. We saw them on holidays and other times. We never talked about it, but I just understood that they were a couple.

I needed to run away in order to come home.

I’m not the angry, rebellious child that I was. You can remain a child for a long time. I certainly did. I was a slow learner.

America had taken my father from me. And over most of the years of his illness, I gradually started feeling this support system from this country who-people grieving along with us.

I would not call myself a veteran conspiracy theorist. Or an obsessed one. I pretty much peaked on the whole conspiracy theory thing in the ’60s, with the grassy knoll, who really killed JFK, and who ordered the hit on Lee Harvey Oswald.

You know, if you hang around this earth long enough you really see how things come full circle.

There is a point in the grieving process when you can run away from memories or walk straight toward them.

It takes strength to make your way through grief, to grab hold of life and let it pull you forward.

We do things in our past that we need to do at the time.

Commerce is abusive. It’s very hobbling to always be saying, ‘Please let me put this out, this thing I’ve worked on for years.’ It’s like a nasty parent saying, ‘No! Now go to your room.’ As publishing companies got bigger, you felt even less significant.

I knew people were independently publishing, and I buy books on Amazon. I began seriously considering it when Amanda Hocking was in the news about her self-publishing success.

There is a version of Alzheimer‘s which is early onset Alzheimer’s. And it’s – it’s horrible, because people do get it in their 50s and 60s. And it’s terrible.

I have a feeling of reverence about my father being in his 80s – a feeling that I want to whisper, take soft steps, not intrude too much. He’s like a stately old cathedral to me now.

I certainly support anyone‘s prerogative to hire or not hire whomever they choose, and I definitely don’t want to work for someone who doesn’t want me.

To me, Ann Romney sounds like a better candidate than her husband. She put her MS into remission through horseback riding, alternative therapies, and a healthy diet. She knows how to pace herself. She has a sense of humor and an innate honesty, and her hair moves in the wind. Maybe she should run.

That is your legacy on this Earth when you leave this Earth: how many hearts you touched.

I often imagine what it would be like if my father were still here to mark his 100th birthday, if Alzheimer’s hadn’t clawed away years, possibilities, hopes. What would he think of all the commemorations and celebrations?

Just think: people decided one day that a day should be set aside for motherhood and fatherhood. What a great concept that is.

My father, for his part, was not a man to begrudge anyone a divergent opinion; he’d have been fine if I had written some articles disagreeing with his policies, or even given interviews, as long as I was respectful and civil.

I think people ultimately reveal themselves to everybody. I think that’s the case with Sarah Palin‘s conduct, particularly after the Tucson shooting, I think she’s sort of digging herself into a hole. I hope – I really hope.

And as far as false hope, there is no such thing. There is only hope or the absence of hope-nothing else.

You have to separate yourself from your parents. You do. In order to find yourself.

Laura Bush went on national television during the week of my father’s funeral and spoke out against embryonic stem cell research, pointing out that where Alzheimer’s is concerned, we don’t have proof that stem-cell treatment would be effective.

When my father, Ronald Reagan, was running for president in 1980, my mother, Nancy, traveled with him on the campaign trail, but she did not give speeches or even many interviews. She never stood in front of a group of reporters and expounded on her views and opinions.

I was such a punk.

No one ever saw all of him. It took me nearly four decades to allow my father his shadows, his reserve, to sit silently with him and not clamor for something more.

I’m very comfortable writing in the first person; it dives into the character in a way that’s difficult if you’re writing in the third person.

My father’s body lies in a stone tomb high on a hill. People walk by, pause, think their own thoughts about him and move on, back to their own lives. I can never move on. He is everywhere.

The CIA created, armed and financed the Contras. My father backed them with everything he had. It was my father’s war, and almost everyone in Nicaragua has lost somebody as a result of it. I couldn’t go down there, being his daughter, and expect not to feel those people’s wrath.

The memories that I have are mostly at our old ranch, out in Agoura. We used to go out there every Saturday. I can smell the oak trees. I can see it so clearly.

I did what most writers do when something happens that’s overwhelming, fascinating, moving, all of that. I didn’t know what else to do about it except write about it.

I felt that the best I could do for my father, and the best I could do for myself, and my mother and my family was to stay open to the experience, and learn whatever I could at every step of the way as it was going on.

I think the earlier stages of Alzheimer’s are the hardest. Particularly because the person knows that they are losing awareness. They’re aware that they’re losing awareness, and you see them struggling.