Quotes from Kristin Hannah

Lulu twirled in front of Jolene, banging into the seat. her eyes sparkled in that I'm-either-going-to-scream-or-fall-asleep-any-second kind of way.

Mama takes Vera in her arms, holding her so hard that neither can breathe. There is only silence between them; in that silence, memories pass back and forth like dye in water, moving and fluid, and when they pull back and look at each other, Vera understands. They will not speak of Olga again, not for a long time, not until the sharp pain rounds into something that can be handled.

talking to each other in Russian, remembering the ghosts in the room. In words and looks and smiles, we honor them at last.

Loreda didn't want the kind of love that trapped. She wanted to be told she could fly high, be anything and go anywhere.

Mislim da ljubav jednostavno može...nestati. Ne,ne može-rekla je njezina majka. Pa kako onda- ?vrsto je držiš...Sve dok ti ne prokrvare ruke,a ni tada je ne puštaš.

It should have been as easy as an elementary math equation: he hits you x broken bones = leave him.

A rebel instead of a dreamer. Daddy had given Loreda words; it was actions that mattered. She knew that now. Leaving. Staying. Fighting. Or walking away.

She hadn't realized how much she'd needed a dream, but it had transformed her, changed her from poor motherless and abandoned Tully to a girl poised to take on the world. The goal made her life story unimportant, gave her something to reach for, to hang on to

Hope was such a dangerous thing, so ephemeral and amorphous; it didn't fit in the concrete world of words spoken aloud.

I don't know how romantic I am, but I only know one way to love...All the way. When I love, I risk my heart. All or nothing.

Nina lowered the camera slowly, feeling naked suddenly, vulnerable. Without that thin layer of a glass lens, she was here instead of there, looking at her father, who was dying.

He saw his whole life in her eyes, all his dreams and hopes and fears.

There is no middle ground, no safe place; not here, in the Great Alone.

They would always be a family, but if she'd learned anything in the past few weeks it was that a family wasn't a static thing. There were always changes going on. Like with continents, sometimes the changes were invisible and underground and sometimes they were explosive and deadly. The trick was to keep your balance. You couldn't control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.

But now she saw what she had never dared to see before: this love of hers was one-sided. She was the one who took care; he was the one who took.

In a breathtaking instant, Cora's life crashed into focus, became small. There was just one thing that mattered; how could she not have known it from the beginning? Why had she spent so much time searching for who she was? She should have known. Always. From the very beginning. She was a mother. A mother.

Two kinds of flocks come up to Alaska, Cora. People running to something and people running away from something. The second kind-you want to keep your eye out for them

Regret, I know, is a powerful remainder; it can bring the strongest man to his knees.

Mr. Lundberg: "I asked you for your position on capital punishment." Student: "Prone.

She had tried to be loved by him; more important, she had tried to keep loving him, but in the end, one was impossible as the other.

I'd always believed that the truth of a person was easily spotted, a line drawn in dark ink on white paper. Now, I wonder. Maybe the truth of who we are lies hidden in all those shades of gray that everyone talks about.

Conlan: "She's not Sophia." Angie: "She's somebody's Sophia.

The sight of them helping others when they themselves had lost everything made her proud.

This is my resolution for the New Year. I will be honest with myself. I'll keep my eyes open. I'll see what's there, not just what I want to see.