M.L. Stedman

“You've had so much strife but you're always happy. How do you do it? " "I choose to," he said. "I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened...or I can forgive and forget... 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.”

“Stick to now. Put right the things you can put right today, and let the ones from back then go. Leave the rest to the angels, or the devil or whoever's in charge of it.”

“I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget.""But it's not that easy."He smiled that Frank smile. "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...”

“We can't rightly ever talk about the future, if you think about it. We can only talk about what we imagine or wish for. It's not the same thing.”

“The only thing we can do is love that little girl as much as she deserves. And never, never hurt her!”

“From when she was a baby, Tom has taught the girl to respect, but not fear, the forces of nature- the lightning that might strike the light tower on Janus, the oceans that batter the island.”

“He was a practical man: give him a sensitive technical instrument, and he could maintain it; something broken, and he could mend it, meditatively, efficiently. But confronted by his grieving wife, he felt useless.”

“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.”

“What are you suggesting I do Ralph?’‘I’m suggesting you tell the bloody truth whatever it is. The only place lying leads is trouble.’“Sometimes that’s the only place telling the truth get you, too.”

“You have only to forgive once. To resent, you have to doit all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things" Frank to Hannah Roennfeldt”

“Your family's never in your past. You carry it around with you everywhere.”

“Life,’ thought Septimus, ... ‘you could never trust the bastard. What it gives with one hand, it takes away with the other.”

“Coming back last time to the house she grew up in, Isabel had been reminded of the darkness that had descended with her brothers' deaths, how loss had leaked all over her mother's life like a stain. As a fourteen-year-old, Isabel had searched the dictionary. She knew that if a wife lost a husband, there was a whole new word to describe who she was: she was now a widow. A husband became a widower. But if a parent loss a child, there was no special label for their grief. They were still just a mother or a father, even if they no longer had a son or daughter. That seemed odd. As to her own status, she wondered whether she was still technically a sister, now that her adored brothers had died.”

“And the stars: the sky gets crowded at night, and it is a bit like watching a clock, seeing the constellations slide across the sky. It’s comforting to know that they’ll show up, however bad the day has been, however crook things get. That used to help in France. It put things into perspective—the stars had been around since before there were people. They just kept shining, no matter what was going on. I think of the light here like that, like a splinter of a star that’s fallen to earth: it just shines, no matter what is happening. Summer, winter, storm, fine weather. People can rely on it.”

“If the war had taught her anything, it was to take nothing for granted: that it wasn’t safe to put off what mattered. Life could snatch away the things you treasured, and there was no getting them back.”

“Scars are just another kind of memory.”

“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 ... I would have to make a list, a very, very long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount ... No ... we always have a choice. All of us.”