Quotes from Ann Napolitano

I love the Internet, or at least I used to, but it's not where you go for the truth.

Since death is certain, but the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing?" Pema Chodron

The child inside Julia lay wide-eyed in the dark, knowing that she was Jo, but only because Sylvie was Beth.

Intense psychological stress tends to shut down the part of the brain responsible for innovative, creative thought.

Figure out what your gift is,Edward Adler, and then blow that shit up.

Make sure you live a meaningful life.

When in doubt, read books," Principal Arundhi says. He speaks quickly, as if worried this might be his last opportunity to share his thoughts. "Educate yourself. Education has always saved me, Edward. Learn about the mysteries." The boy looks at him, and believes him. Believes that education saved him, believes that he had once been a person who needed to be saved.

What happened is baked into your bones, ...It lives under your skin. It's not going away. It's part of you and will be part of you every moment until you die. What you've been working on, since the first time I met you, is learning to live with that.

Basketball was the first thing in William's life that loved him back.

But Carrie had told her friend once, during high school, not to model herself on Julia. "I like your mom a lot," Carrie had said, "but anyone that dresses and does their hair as carefully as your mom does every single day is unhappy on the inside. She's trying to hide all her messiness, and I want better than that for you.

It's because you know that more is possible that you'll always see the pointlessness in following a stupid rule or clocking in and out of a boring class. Most people can't see that distinction, so they just do as they're told. Of course, this makes them bored and irritated, but they think that's the human condition. You and I are lucky enough to see that it doesn't have to be that way.

He pictures the nursery, with its baby books and rocking chair. His body had jerked backward when he'd entered on the first day. He'd wanted to leave immediately, somehow knowing that those four walls couldn't bear both Lacey's grief and his own.

Humans need community, for our emotional health. We need connection, a sense of belonging. We are not built to thrive in isolation

I miss you, Daddy. I wish you could have seen me as a mother. It would have made you smile.

The past is the same as the present to her, as precious and as close at hand. After all, if you think about one memory for most of a day, is that not your present? Some people live in the now; some people prefer to reside in the past—either choice is valid.

There is a monotony to time in the air. Consistent air quality and temperature, limited collection of sounds, circumscribed range of motion for the passengers. Some people thrive within these restrictions and relax in the sky in a way they rarely do at home. They have powered down their phones and packed their computers in their luggage; they delight in being unreachable, and read novels, or giggle at sitcoms on the in-seat monitor.

Julia by her side; it made sense that with her sister she would also briefly be allowed her normal taste buds.

I'm not ready for this," she says. "This," Florida says. She thinks: This is the subject that defines women. Having babies. Will you have them? Can you have them? Do you want to have them?

I want to know what to do," he hears himself say, and, like the decision to write to the co-pilot's wife, the statement is a relief. He wants to know what to do. She taps the center of his hand. "That's easy. The same thing we all must do. Take stock of who we are, and what we have, and then use it for good.

He says, "A family that big must have been a lot of work." "It was. You're a man, so you'll never know work that hard. It's reserved solely for the women.

He hated that his friend had to resume the duty of standing guard over his depression.

It felt like a piece of punctuation in a run-on sentence.

Why is it," an old news anchor growls, "that out of all the terrible news in this terrible world, we care so much about this one downed plane and this one little boy?

If you live long enough, everything is complicated.