Quotes from Kristin Hannah

Maybe time didn't heal wounds exactly, but it gave you a kind of armor, or a new perspective. A

Adults always talked about mistakes, the cost of doing the wrong thing. She wished she'd listened now.

An even worse memory followed: Gaëtan. He had abandoned her after all; it filled her with the kind of bone-deep disappointment she knew so well.

She knew Miles didn't understand. Last night he'd made that sound—that sigh of desperation or despair—when she couldn't change into a nightgown. He didn't understand how fragile she felt. If she lifted her arms, they might break off.

now, of all moments, at this time when her love for her children almost bowled her over and she thought, even in the midst of all this hardship and failure, I have raised good children. Kind, caring, loving people. "I'll write something," Elsa said. "Will you let us read it, Mommy?" Ant asked. "Maybe someday.

They might not even have tomorrow. She hated that her first time would be bathed in sorrow, steeped in a sense of having already lost what they'd just found, but that was the world now. One

A cliché is just something that's commonly true.

Some things in life, though, couldn't be gone in search of. They simply had to be waited for. Like the weather. You could look out on the horizon and see a bank of black storm clouds. That did not guarantee rain tomorrow. It might just as easily dawn bright and clear. There was no damn way to tell. All you could do was keep moving and live you life.

Everyone broke—and held themselves together—in their own way.

The love, it comes in the beginning of her life and at the end of yours. God is cruel that way. Your heart, is it too broken to love?" "Of course not." "So, you go on." She shrugged, as if to say, Motherhood. "What choice is there for us?

To make real friends you have to put yourself out there. Sometimes people will let you down, but you can't let that stop you. If you get hurt, just pick yourself up, dust off your feelings, and try again.

It's not intentions that matter. It's actions. My drill instructor used to say that all the time. We are what we do and say, not what we intend to. I

reminded her how precious time was, how fleeting. How sometimes life snipped the edges off your good intentions and left you with no second chance to say what really mattered.

was so hot that every now and then a bird fell from the sky, landing with a little thump on the hard-packed dirt. The chickens sat in dusty heaps on the ground, their heads lolled forward, and the last two cows stood together, too hot and tired to move. A listless breeze moved through the farm, plucking at the empty clothesline.

I can't," Mama finally said, and Leni thought they were the saddest, most pathetic words she'd ever heard.

Hiroshima. There are a million ways for this sick, corrupt world to end.

She is so certain of everything. This war is black and white for her. Nothing seems to scare her.

women make choices for others, not for ourselves, and when we are mothers, we . . . bear what we must for our children. You will protect them. It will hurt you; it will hurt them. Your job is to hide that your heart is breaking and do what they need you to do.

Matthew grieved for the mother he'd had. He figured Leni would grieve for the dad she wanted.

Soon, the crops would be planted. By July, the corn would be as tall as a man and go on forever. By October, the leaves would be brownish gold and thin as paper,and when the early winter winds came, the rustling stalks would sound like a hive of bees. That was the cycle of the land, the measure of time. Everything in her daddy's world had been tacked to seasons. Things came and went and lived and died according to sunlight.

Best friends forever. They'd believed it would last, that vow, that someday they'd be old women, sitting in their rocking chairs on a creaking deck, talking about the times of their lives, and laughing. Now she knew better, of course. For more than a year she'd been telling herself it was okay, that she could go on without a best friend. Sometimes she even believed it.

Another promise made by a man who'd kept too few.

Three years ago, I began writing this novel about hard times in America: the worst environmental disaster in our history; the collapse of the economy; the effect of massive unemployment. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the Great Depression would become so relevant in our modern lives, that I would see so many people out of work, in need, frightened for the future.

Memories--even the best of them--faded.