bright side of the road: a love letter to nora ephron

"I’d known since I was 5, when my parents forced me to move to California, that I was going to live in New York eventually and that everything in between was just a horrible intermission. I’d spent those sixteen years imagining what New York was going to be like. I thought it was going to be the most exciting, magical, fraught-with-possibility place that you could ever live in; a place where if you really wanted something, you might be able to get it; a place where I’d be surrounded by people I was dying to be with. And I turned out to be right." - Nora Ephron

- Excerpt from "My First New York"

there are those certain movies you come across on tv, stop flipping, and watch. doesn't matter if it just started, it's right in the middle, or about to end. doesn't matter if its on dvd 20 feet away from you, ready to be popped in commercial-free. you just watch. and it's still just as amazing and powerful the 100th time as it was the first. for me these have been, and always will be, nora ephron's movies.

part of the reason the upper west side was the only area in manhattan i wanted to live in was thanks to kathleen kelly, joe fox and my absolute favorite movie of all time: you've got mail. every time i walk past cafe lalo or sit at the window seats at the 81st street starbucks, i can't help but smile. it's like living in the magic of that movie.

the world lost an amazing writer and woman last night, but her wit, wisdom and spirit live on in the stories she told so well.

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"The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are, can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall! Decaf! Cappuccino!"

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"Once I read a story about a butterfly in the subway, and today I saw one. I couldn't believe it. It got on at 42nd -- and got off at 59th, where I assume it was going to Bloomindale's to buy a hat that will turn out to be a mistake. As almost all hats are."

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"Well, it was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supposed to be together... and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home, only to no home I'd ever known. I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like... magic."

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"I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

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"I'll have what she's having."

"Whatever you choose, however many roads you travel, I hope that you choose not to be a lady. I hope you will find some way to break the rules and make a little trouble out there. And I also hope that you will choose to make some of that trouble on behalf of women. Thank you. Good luck. The first act of your life is over. Welcome to the best years of your lives." - Nora Ephron

- 1996 commencement speech at Wellesley College