Quotes from Kristin Hannah

Beneath the shoes lay Loreda's brand-new library card and The Hidden Staircase. Loreda looked up. "You went back? In the rain?" "Mrs. Quisdorf picked that book out for you. That card, though, that's the real gift. It can take you anywhere, Loreda.

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward. —SØREN KIERKEGAARD

Sometime—she didn't know when—she closed her eyes and reached out, placing a hand in the hollow of his stomach, feeling it rise and fall with his breathing. It was like resting her hand on the ocean in summer, when the tide was coming in.

If I had told him the truth long ago, or had danced and drunk and sung more, maybe he would have seen me instead of a dependable, ordinary mother. He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted; to be loved and admired. Now i think perhaps I'd like to be known.

Sometimes you have to fight for the thing that will complete you.

You see things and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were And say, 'Why not?'" —George Bernard Shaw

this time, Dad had taught Leni how dangerous the outside world was. The truth was that the biggest danger of all was in her own home.

A year ago, Elsa would have thought it insane that any woman would think to walk from Oklahoma or Texas or Alabama to California, especially pushing a baby carriage. Now she knew better. When your children were dying, you did anything to save them, even walk over mountains and across deserts.

Sometimes you simply made the wrong choice and you had to live with it. You could only change the future. She

Love rips the shit out of you and puts you back together like a broken toy, with all kinds of cracks and jagged edges. It's not about the falling in love. It's about the landing where you said you'd be and working to keep that love strong.' 

A generous donor (who had no doubt lived a life that imperiled his mortal soul) had granted [the Sisters] more than one hundred waterfront acres.

I want to imagine there will be peace when I am gone, that I will see all of the people I have loved and lost. At least that I will be forgiven. I

Love shows us who we want to be. War shows us who we are.

Vietnam...war...it did something to us. Or maybe not. Maybe the bad seeds were always in me, and war gave them a dark place in which to grow.

You either belong here,, wild and untamed yourself, or you don't.

To those who are here, those who are gone, and those who are lost." She

She was a star, burning so brightly it broke apart, pieces flying, light spraying.

Inside was a library unlike any Leni had ever seen. Row upon row of wooden desks, decorated with green banker's lamps, were positioned beneath an arched ceiling. Gothic chandeliers hung above the desks. And the books! She'd never seen so many. They whispered to her of unexplored worlds and unmet friends and she realized that she wasn't alone in this new world. Her friends were here, spine out, waiting for her as they always had.

Love has to be stronger than hate or there is no future for us.

Home is part of us. It's in the scars we have on our knees and elbows, in the memories that surface when we sleep. I don't think you can ever really leave.

It didn't matter how you lost a parent or how great or shitty that parent was, a kid grieved forever.

Men tell stories", I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.

Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real." "Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit. "Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. —The Velveteen Rabbit Margery Williams

of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are. Today's young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve