Kristin Hannah

“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?”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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?”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“The measure of a society is its compassion.”

“She remembered how it had felt and tasted, that slowly descending depression, like a thick glass jar that closed around you, sucking away the air you needed to breathe, creating a barrier between you and the world. The hell of it was that she'd been able to see all that she was missing, but when she'd reached out, all she'd touched was cold, hard glass.”

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

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

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

“And before you barrel through some idiotic Cosmo girl list of how-well-do-you-know-your-man questions, let me say that I don't know squat about him except that he kisses like a god and screws like a devil.”

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

“She knew now that no one could be neutral - not anymore - and as afraid as she was of risking Sophie's life, she was suddenly more afraid of letting her daughter grow up in a world where good people did nothing to stop evil, where a good woman could turn her back on a friend in need.”

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

“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".”

“Goddamn, sometimes it hurt to be free.”