Kristin Hannah Quotes

Even as she listened to murmurs of support, she heard the relief in other people’s voices, the immense gratitude that it wasn’t their child who had died. She heard I’m so sorry until she despised those words as she had never despised anything in her life, and she discovered an anger in her soul that was new.

Magic to be its best must be unexpected".

I've never begged. not for anything... except my mother's love.And that was a useless waste of time.

It isn’t about being at the same school or the same town or even the same room. It’s about being together. Love is a choice you make.

I just want to keep you safe.I smile. Americans can be so naive.

She had tried to be loved by him; more important, she had tried to keep loving him, but in the end, one was impossible as the other.

If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

A WOMAN'S PLACE IS IN THE HOUSE...AND THE SENATE.

Goddamn, sometimes it hurt to be free.

He was afraid that the secrets she'd kept would always be here, inside him, an ugly malignant thing lodged near enough to his heart to upset its rhythm, and though it could be removed, cut out, there would always be scars; bits and pieces of it would remain in his blood, making it wrong somehow, so that if he accidentally sliced his skin open, his blood would--for one heartbeat--flow as black as India ink before it remembered that it should be red.

Fifteen minutes later, Betsy came thundering down the stairs. "I'm going to the mall with Sierra to see a movie."Michael leaned forward, switched off the television. "Can you please rephrase that in the form of a question?""Sure. Can I have some money?

It felt as if she were bleeding - but it wasn't blood that leaked out of her, not something that could be easily transfused. Instead she was losing her dreams.

To make real friends you have to put yourself out there. Sometimes people will let you down, but you can't let that stop you. If you get hurt, you just pick yourself up, dust off your feelings, and try again.

As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart. I cannot now imagine a life without her.

Liam learned that it was possible to appear to move forward when you were really standing still.

I had forgotten how gently time passes in Paris. As lively as the city is, there's a stillness to it, a peace that lures you in. In Paris, with a glass of wine in your hand, you can just be.All along the Seine, street lamps come on, apartment windows turn golden."It's seven," Julien says, and I realize that he has been keeping time all along, waiting. He is so American. No sitting idle, forgetting oneself, not for this young man of mine.

My skin has the crinkled appearance of wax paper that someone has tried to flatten and reuse. My eyes fail me often—in the darkness, when headlights flash, when rain falls. It is unnerving, this new unreliability in my vision. Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.

If I had told him the truth long ago, or had danced and drunk and sung more, maybe he would have seen me instead of a dependable, ordinary mother. He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted; to be loved and admired. Now i think perhaps I'd like to be known.

Alice started to cry. It came with no sound, no shuddering, no childlike hysterics, just a soul-deep release that turned into moisture and dripped down her puffy pink cheeks. She touched her tears, frowning. Then she looked up at Julia and whimpered two words before she fell asleep. ‘Real hurts.’

...This fear was unbearable. It unwrapped who she was, as neatly as he'd unwound her bandage, leaving too much pain and ugliness exposed.Nerve endings; he'd said they were the problem [causing phantom pain in the amputated limb]." Things that cut off, that ended abruptly or died--like parents and marriages--kept hurting forever.

Angie: "How do I pitch these ideas to her?"Mira: "From a distance, preferably wearing body armor.

I am like some wounded animal in a darkened lair, nursing the thorn in my paw, unable to find anyone to take it out.

That was the one thing she knew now. Some chances came and went, and if you missed them, you could spend the rest of your life standing alone, waiting for an opportunity that had already passed you by.

She hadn't realized how much she'd needed a dream, but it had transformed her, changed her from poor motherless and abandoned Tully to a girl poised to take on the world. The goal made her life story unimportant, gave her something to reach for, to hang on to

Lulu twirled in front of Jolene, banging into the seat. her eyes sparkled in that I'm-either-going-to-scream-or-fall-asleep-any-second kind of way.

It is nearly impossible.''Nearly impossible and impossible are not the same thing.

This is the problem with forever friends. They know too much.

The measure of a man comes down to moments, spread out like dots of pain on the canvas on life. Everything you were, everything you'll someday be, resides in the small, seemingly ordinary choices of everyday life.....Each decision seems as insignificant as a left turn on an unfamiliar road when you have no destination in mind. But the decisions accumulate until you realize one day that they've made you the man that you are.

A daughter without her mother is a woman broken. It is a loss that turns to arthritis and settles deep into her bones.

The next morning, Angie woke with the sun...Her eyes felt gritty and swollen.Once again she'd watered her mattress with memories.

It is a kiss that, once begun, never really ends. Interrupted, yes. Paused, certainly. But from that very moment onward, Vera sees the whole of her life as only a breath away from kissing him again. On that night in the park, they begin the delicate task of binding their souls together, creating a whole comprising their separate halves.

Do you love him?"How would I know?"You'd know.

Vietnam...war...it did something to us. Or maybe not. Maybe the bad seeds were always in me, and war gave them a dark place in which to grow.

Memories are who we are, Tul. In the end, that’s all the luggage you take with you. Love and memories are what last.

The falling apart of a man's life should make more noise. It should startle passesrby with its Sturm and Drang. It ought to sound like the Parthenon crashing down. Not this ordinary, everyday kind of quiet...He closed his eyes...And still it was quiet, this falling apart of his life, as silent as the last beat of an old man's heart. A quiet, echoing thud, and then...nothing.

... allow me to be an old man for a moment and to remind a young girl who is used to being impulsive that there can be none of that anymore.

That was the thing about best friends. Like sisters and mothers, they could piss you off and make you cry and break your heart, but in the end, when the chips were down, they were there, making you laugh even in your darkest hours.

She pouted prettily, and he wondered if that was one of the things they taught wealthy young girls at schools like Miss Porter's. If not, it had been passed down from one generation to another as carefully as the secret of fire.

This time I really am going to light the world on fire,' she said, laughing. 'I finally have a fucking match.

Hey, Meg," she said without preamble. I need you to write a letter of recommendation for me. I'm applying for grad sc

it’s better to be bold than meek.If you jump off a cliff at least you’llfly before you fall

Elizabeth: "Maybe he'll surprise you."Meghann: "Birdie, they all surprise me. Last week, I hugged my date at the door and felt a bra strap.

Some women nodded, others shook their heads. I would have killed myself before I let one of them move into my house. Would you Helen? Would you really?

We are all changed by this war, Soph. Daniel is your brother now that Rachel is ... gone. Truly your brother. And this baby, he or she is innocent of ... his or her creation.''It's hard to forget,' she said quietly. 'And I'll never forgive.''But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.'Sophie sighed. 'I suppose,' she said, sounding too adult for a girl of he

Magic to be its best must be unexpected.

He is a man, and he is afraid. This is not a good combination.

Marah will come looking for me one day, Kate had said, pressing the journal into my hands. Be with her when she reads it. And my boys… show them these words when they can’t remember me.

Those are exactly the kind of memories I try to avoid, but they're like abestos: invisible and deadly. You need special gear to get rid of them.

The trip from Portland to New York City was like climbing Mount Everest without oxygen. It went on and on, and by the time you reached your destination, there was no sensation left in your extremities.

Caro: "Bite me."Ruby: "I gave that up in kindergarten.

. . .you sounded frustrated and pissed off and amazingly happy

Was Vianne really supposed to let Sophie starve to prove her loyalty to France?

The measure of a society is its compassion.

A generous donor (who had no doubt lived a life that imperiled his mortal soul) had granted [the Sisters] more than one hundred waterfront acres.

Tragedy was like that, a razor that sliced through time, severing the now from the before, incising the what-might-have-been from reality as cleanly as any surgeon's blade.

We are outside again, walking, when he takes a bite and stops dead. "Wow," he says after a minute. Then, "Wow," again.I smile. Everyone remembers their first taste of Paris. This will be his.

Vianne knelt down beside Sarah, she felt for a pulse and found none. The silence turned sour, thick; all Vianne could think about was the sound of this child's laughter and how empty the world would be without it.

Sometimes you simply made the wrong choice and you had to live with it. You could only change the future.

she should have told me that times slides away on a hillside of lose shale and takes everything in its path-dreams, opportunities, hopes. And youth. It takes that fastest of all.

Girls like you can't understand," Julia said, and it was true. Ellie had been popular. She didn't know that some hurts were like a once-broken bone. In the right weather, they could ache for a lifetime.