M. L. Stedman Quotes

• No one ever has or ever will travel quite the same path on earth.

  M. L. Stedman

  Life, Travel, Journey

  47 Copy quote

• Once a child gets into your heart, there’s no right or wrong about it.

  M. L. Stedman

  Children, Heart

  M.L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans: A Novel”, p.263, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• Right and wrong can be like bloody snakes: so tangled up that you can't tell which is which until you've shot 'em both, and then it's too late.

  M. L. Stedman

  Snakes, Tangled, Too Late

  M. L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans”, p.180, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• There are times when the ocean is not the ocean - not blue, not even water, but some violent explosion of energy and danger: ferocity on a scale only gods can summon. It hurls itself at the island, sending spray right over the top of the lighthouse, biting pieces off the cliff. And the sound is a roaring of a beast whose anger knows no limits. Those are the nights the light is needed most.

  M. L. Stedman

  Ocean, Night, Islands

  "The Light Between Oceans". Book by M. L. Stedman, 2012.

  19 Copy quote

• You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day.

  M. L. Stedman

  Forgiveness, Resent You, Forgiving

  M. L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans”, p.323, Simon and Schuster

  19 Copy quote

• We live with the decisions we makeThat’s what bravery is. Standing by the consequences of your mistakes.

  M. L. Stedman

  Mistake, Bravery, Decision

  10 Copy quote

• When it comes to their kids, parents are all just instinct and hope. And fear. Rules and laws fly straight out the window.

  M. L. Stedman

  Kids, Law, Parent

  M. L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans”, p.276, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• To have any kind of a future you've got to give up hope of ever changing your past.

  M. L. Stedman

  Giving Up, Past, Kind

  M.L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans: A Novel”, p.396, Simon and Schuster

  9 Copy quote

• The law's the law, but people are people.

  M. L. Stedman

  Law, People

  M. L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans”, p.276, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• Such a mysterious business, motherhood. How brave a woman must be to embark on it.

  M. L. Stedman

  Motherhood, Brave, Mysterious

  M.L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans: A Novel”, p.66, Simon and Schuster

  12 Copy quote

• Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things.

  M. L. Stedman

  Resent You, Forgiving, Treasure

  M. L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans”, p.323, Simon and Schuster

  10 Copy quote

• That's how life goes on - protected by the silence that anesthetizes shame.

  M. L. Stedman

  Silence, Goes On, Shame

  M. L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans”, p.155, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• The isolation spins its mysterious cocoon, focusing the mind on one place, one time, one rhythm - the turning of the light. The island knows no other human voices, no other footprints. On the Offshore Lights you can live any story you want to tell yourself, and no one will say you're wrong: not the seagulls, not the prisms, not the wind.

  M. L. Stedman

  Islands, Light, Wind

  M. L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans”, p.110, Simon and Schuster

  47 Copy quote

• Sometimes life turns out hard, Isabel. Sometimes it just bites right through you. And sometimes, just when you think it's done its worst, it comes back and takes another chunk.

  M. L. Stedman

  Life, Thinking, Done

  M.L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans: A Novel”, p.311, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• There are times when the ocean is not the ocean - not blue, not even water, but some violent explosion of energy and danger: fierceness on a scale only gods can summon.

  M. L. Stedman

  Ocean, Blue, Water

  "The Light Between Oceans". Book by M. L. Stedman, 2012.

  7 Copy quote

• Scars are just another kind of memory.

  M. L. Stedman

  Memories, Scar, Kind

  7 Copy quote

• When he wakes sometimes from dark dreams of broken cradles, and compasses without bearings, he pushes the unease down, lets the daylight contradict it. And isolation lulls him with the music of the lie.

  M. L. Stedman

  Dream, Lying, Dark

  M. L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans”, p.159, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Every end is the beginning of something else.

  M. L. Stedman

  Ends

  5 Copy quote

• Years bleach away the sense of things until all that's left is a bone-white past, stripped of feeling and significance.

  M. L. Stedman

  Past, Years, White

  M.L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans: A Novel”, p.398, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• You don’t think ahead in years or months: you think about this hour, and maybe the next. Anything else is speculation.

  M. L. Stedman

  Thinking, Years, Next

  M. L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans”, p.33, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• History is that which is agreed upon by mutual consent.

  M. L. Stedman

  Consent, Mutual

  M.L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans: A Novel”, p.184, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• Sometimes it's good to leave the past in the past.

  M. L. Stedman

  Past, Sometimes, Leaving The Past

  M. L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans”, p.44, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• It is a luxury to do something that serves no practical purpose: the luxury of civilization.

  M. L. Stedman

  Civilization, Luxury, Purpose

  M.L. Stedman (2012). “The Light Between Oceans: A Novel”, p.44, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• Humans withdraw to their homes, and surrender the night to the creatures that own it: the crickets, the owls, the snakes. A world that hasn't changed for hundreds of thousands of years wakes up, and carries on as if the daylight and the humans and the changes to the landscape have all been an illusion.

  M. L. Stedman

  Home, Night, Years

  5 Copy quote

• Nature allowed only the fit and the lucky to share this paradise-in-the-making.

  M. L. Stedman

  Lucky, Paradise, Fit

  4 Copy quote

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