Quotes from Elin Hilderbrand

How did the best get better? It just did. Every single guest raved about the food. Perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked, the freshest, the creamiest, the most succulent. The best I've ever had. Adrienne noted it, too, at family meal: the Asian shrimp noodles, the Croque monsieurs, the steak sandwiches with creamy horseradish sauce and crispy Vidalia onion rings.

He couldn't remember his former babysitter's name. It was in the Elisa/Alyssa/Alicia vein, but he wasn't sure exactly which.

the summer of 1969, she will think: That was the summer I became real. My own real person.

The conversation isn't going well, but that's hardly unusual for a 21 year old woman talking to her parents in the summer of 1969.

It seemed the cruelest circumstance life had to offer—that someone she loved so profoundly could hurt her so badly and still that love did not die.

makes of herself.

Restraint was a mountaintop on a faraway continent.

she's on brand even when she's having a breakdown.

backbone, Eddie informed Allegra that she would not have

The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. She hangs it on

With all the advances in medicine and technology, why has someone not created a pill that cures heartbreak? Emotional penicillin. Why has someone not invented software that will sweep all traces of your ex out of your brain or an app that eliminates unrequited love?

Sometimes you regret the things you do, but they're over and done. Regretting the things you didn't do is tougher, because they're still out there… haunting you. The what-ifs.

Drama followed Chess around like a smell. Some people, Tate had learned, were like that, and it was for people like her to sit and watch the show.

What a person does isn't the same as who a person is.

Hamnet, by Maggie O'Farrell?

Sea Wife, by Amity Gaige.

that's what unconditional love is all about. The 'no-matter-what's.

they didn't have a lot in common in the way people understood that phrase. Rather, they were opposite sides of the same coin. They complemented each other, completed each other. They'd created a life that glowed.

Poetry was made for the bath, Mitzi believed. She was partial to Pablo Neruda.

Scotland? Dru-Ann wonders if Nick feels that Phineas's remarkable showing somehow justifies Posey's decision to quit the Dow. He had a dream he was going to win. Maybe Nick thinks it's romantic, Posey sacrificing her own nearly certain victory to be at her boyfriend's side. It's not romantic, Dru-Ann thinks. It's pitiful! While Avalon is making herself an herbal tea

Is there anyone in the world more fascinating than the woman you lost out to?

Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult

avocado toast with a slice of ripe hothouse tomato, a perfectly poached egg, and flaky sea salt on the excellent sourdough

Hollis uses a TikTok hack to arrange the flowers: She crosshatches tape across the top of the vase so the flowers stand up straight, and she adds vinegar, sugar, and ice to the water to keep the flowers fresh.