Quotes from Barbara Davis

Integrity isn't something you have in some parts of your life and not in others. You either have it or you don't.

learned to keep my distance at an early age. A survival mechanism, you might say. I'm working on it, though. Another thirty years and I should about have it mastered.

But the truth is incapable of real harm. It is we who do harm, when we refuse to face what is real, because it's uncomfortable or inconvenient.

You can't miss what you never had.

They were young and still starry-eyed, too naive to know that true love and happily ever after were the stuff of fairy tales—and that sometimes the line between frog and prince got pretty blurry

many who claimed to want the truth actually wanted anything but.

He said telling someone else what they're doing wrong isn't the same as being able to do it yourself.

was unfathomable. But really, it wasn't. And that made it worse somehow.

The tide, you see, is a fickle thing: stealing in, sliding away, always, always turning. She comes when you're not looking, a silent, liquid thief, only to rush away again, retreating from the shore like a coward. She gives sometimes too, though in fleeting, unexpected moments, yielding up her treasures and her dead--but never, ever her secrets.

Vulnerable. It wasn't a word she liked the sound of. It was a weak word. A needy word. And she didn't want to need anyone.

Always, there must be free will. It is not for us to impose our beliefs on others or to endeavor to persuade one to the practices of our faith. We do not seek those who need our help. Rather, they must seek us and request our assistance. —Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch" Davis, Barbara. The Keeper of Happy Endings

But belonging to someone and giving yourself to them were two very different things. One formed out of need, a tidy arrangement mutually beneficial to both parties, while the other involved laying yourself bare—something she'd never been very good at.

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm just saying don't pretend it's not a big deal when it obviously is.

I know what it looks like when someone's pushing the whole world away and how much you can lose while you're doing it.

the word never represents all the doors we keep closed, that when we say never we close ourselves off from the hope that things can ever be different.

I told you, animals have a thing for me. It's the grown-ups I can't seem to win over.

Sometimes grown-ups cry when they're happy. That's what I'm doing. I'm crying because I'm happy.

It was hard to imagine feeling more out of place than she did at that moment.

Men like Stephen don't cheat because they're missing something at home, Christy-Lynn. They cheat because they're missing something inside, so they take what they want and make it theirs, because they need to fill up all that empty space.

Please . . . don't do this. Don't try to get in my head and figure me out. I promise you, it isn't worth it.

playing small as they say nowadays, afraid of making others uncomfortable.

I think I was numb," she said at last. "Not happy. Not unhappy. There were signs, I suppose, that it wasn't Shangri-la, but there wasn't any one thing. It was gradual, you know? Insidious. It wasn't until he was gone that I realized I'd been married to someone I barely knew. I was holding on so tightly I never realized how much we'd both changed. Still, it wasn't enough to leave. At least I didn't think it was.

In a very short time, I have come to realize that a mother will do almost anything - lie, cheat, even steal - for the sake of her child.

Men like Stephen don't cheat because they're missing something at home, Christy-Lynn. They cheat because they're missing something inside, so they take what they want and make it theirs, because they need to fill up all that empty space. That's what this woman was. A space filler, something he wanted and took. It wasn't about you.