Quotes from Hannah Tinti

Everything breaks if you hit it hard enough.

Is that what you wanted to hear? No. The man reached over, took hold of the lantern and blew it out. Night enveloped the barn. Well, he said at last to the darkness between them, that's when you know it's the truth.

When death comes, she said, all that matters is this: to be next to one another. My mother was wearing a silk dress, and as she pressed her fingers into his, all of my father's adventures and hard living melted away. He knew that he had met the woman he would love until he couldn't love anymore.

Love isn't about keeping promises. It's about knowing someone better than anyone else. I'm the only one who knows him. I'm the only one who ever will.

I have a good eye, said Benjamin. Most of the time I can look at a person and see their whole life. Small things give them away. That farmer, for instance. I could tell by the way he tied his shoes that he'd never traveled more than twenty miles from his home, and it was unlikely that he'd follow us for long. And that Father John of yours. I knew he had something hidden in that sleeve. And I knew he'd use it on you. The only thing I didn't know was if you deserved it.

At times Ren felt like he was reading fragments of his own dreams, reassembled into words that pulled at his heart, as if there were a string tied somewhere inside his chest that ran down into the book and attached itself to the characters, drawing him through the pages.

Changing where you were could change how much you mattered.

Something is making this happen, she'd thought. The whole world is alive and moving and I was meant to be here doing exactly this.

But the past is like a shadow, always trying to catch up.

He kept expecting something to happen, some outside force to sweep in and change everything and take him in some new direction, give him a more normal life.

The Harelip had taken off her heavy shawl and draped it over a headstone. The grave was tilted and covered with moss, the name worn away by the weather. The person underneath had been forgotten and was no longer mourned by the world. But for a moment, Ren thought, the small black slate looked warmed, and grateful for being chosen.

But when she turned at the entryway and looked back at him, he left the table and followed, as if she were a magnet, drawing him away from his better judgement.

Is that what you wanted to hear?" "No." The man reached over, took hold of the lantern, and blew it out. Night enveloped the barn. "Well," he said at last to the darkness between them, "that's when you know it's the truth.

He said her name like it was something he'd already left behind. She could feel her heart twisting inside the walls of her chest.

Their hearts were all cycling through the same madness - the discovery, the bliss, the loss, the despair - like planets taking turns in orbit around the sun. Each containing their own unique gravity. Their own force of attractions. Drawing near and holding fast to whatever entered their own atmosphere ... they would find love and lost love and recover from love and love again.

I'm so tired I forget who I am sometimes.

he tore at her clothing like he was searching for something she had stolen from him.

Hawley reached over and took Lily's hand. He was always taking her hand. He felt better about things, just by holding her fingers.

Know what you need, and if it crosses your path, take it.

He thought of the statue of Saint Anthony, and all the empty prayers he had said before it, wishing for things that had never been lost.

She began to dread the moves but a part of her also itched for them, because it meant that she could stop trying to fit in and simply slip into the place where she belonged: the passenger seat of her father's truck as they barreled down the highway. They

Hawley had met some tough broads over the years, but they were honed that way from rough living. Mabel was something else. Her hardness was built into her very foundation, and she rammed that hardness into others, like an oil tanker barreling through a fleet of rowboats.

Love isn't about keeping promises. It's about knowing someone better than anyone else. I'm the only one who knows him. I'm the only one who ever will.