It was a blessing and also a curse of handwritten letters that unlike email you couldn’t obsessively reread what you’d written after you’d sent it. You couldn’t attempt to un-send it. Once you’d sent it it was gone. It was an object that no longer belonged to you but belonged to your recipient to do with what he would. You tended to remember the feeling of what you’d said more than the words. You gave to object away and left yourself with the memory. That was what it was to give.
The present no matter what I brought couldn’t change the past. The Past was set and sealed.
He no longer represented someday a possibility. He represented a road not taken a road that suddenly shot so far into the distance she couldn’t see it anymore.
Carmen was bad at loving. She loved too hard.
It was frustrating when people loved you and took an interest in you and sometimes worried about you and personally cared what you did with yourself. Lena wished that love were something you could flip on and off. You could turn it on when you felt good bout yourself and worthy of it and generous enough to return it. You could clip it off when you needed to hide or self-destruct and had nothing at all to give." (Lena, 194)
People said things they didn't mean all the time. Everybody else in the world seemed able to factor it in. But not Lena. Why did she believe the things people said? Why did she cling to them so literally? Why did she think she knew people when she clearly didn't? Why did she imagine that the world didn't change, when it did? Maybe she didn't change. She believed what people said and she stayed the same." (Lena, 211)
He took her hand and they started walking toward the baggage claim. They didn't say anything to each other. They swung their held hands like little kids, like they believed anything could happen, like they might take off soaring into the air. All the things you wanted to happen could happen. Why not?
But then she hadn’t just learned to love this summer – she had also learned how to need.
She perched on her windowsill, gazing at the lurid sun soaking into the Caldera, trying to appreciate it even though she couldn’t have it. Why did she always feel she had to do something in the face of beauty?
Sometimes it is a relief to be invisible
Shy” was the sympathetic interpretation she got from older people. “Snotty” was the interpretation she got from people her own age.
She couldn’t hide from everyone for the rest of her life… Well she could. That was the direction things were going. But she knew from long-ago experience that when you were uncertain and if you were courageous enough to let her in a real friend could do a world of good.
You get older and you learn there is one sentence just four worlds long and if you can say it to yourself it offers more comfort than almost any other. It goes like this… Ready ” “Ready.” “At least I tried.
She had to have faith not just in trying but in failing. Was she strong enough to fail Was she strong enough not to
She was still waiting for him to come back to her, even though he wasn't going to. She was still holding out for something that wasn't going to happen. She was good at waiting. That seemed like a sad thing to be good at.
You just have to let people love you in the way they can
For the first time she saw that the nurse's name was Tabitha.
But will he come I just want to know what you think the odds are. Tell me what you really think." "I think Tibby was a wise girl. I think she loved you.
It was probably good you couldn't flip the love switch because sometimes it was what you needed even if you didn't want it.
They needed to grieve alone was what Tibby's dad said. Lena wondered if really there was any choice in that. Everyone grieved alone.
Their friendship was only one aspect of their lives but it seemed to give meaning to all the others.
She got under the covers and put her arms around the bag. She could smell Tibby. It used to be she couldn't smell Tibby's smell in the way you couldn't smell your own; it was too familiar. But tonight she could. This was some living part of Tibby still here and she held on to it. There was more of Tibby with her here and now than in what she had seen in the cold basement room that day.
She loved her mother and depended on her mother, and yet every single word her mother said annoyed her.
It’s natural to overlook and even sacrifice the things that belong to us most easily most gracefully. So here’s me asking you to please not make that mistake.
She wondered if maybe tragedy was what it took to make your heart capable of admitting a new member.
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
or simply: