Quotes from Kristin Hannah

you sounded frustrated and pissed off and amazingly happy

When you get older, you'll understand. There's a certain comfort in the familiar.

That was the thing about her dad: he might be moody and sharp-tempered, even a little scary sometimes, but that was just because he felt things like love and loss and disappointment so keenly.

The street was a living, breathing dragon of humanity, inching forward, wheezing dirt, honking horns; people yelling for help, babies crying, and the smell of sweat heavy in the air.

The most amazing part of this science-fiction moment was that her mother actually believed what she just said.

Mama wanted to induct Leni into some terrible, silent club to which Leni didn't want to belong. She didn't want to pretend what had happened was normal, but what was she—a kid—supposed to do about it?

You never know if a book is going to succeed or fail, so what matters ultimately is how you feel about it and whether you, the author, are willing to bet the farm on this novel.

The smile he gave her was slow in forming, and when it came, she felt pain constrict her chest. Memories came at her in waves, surging over the breakwater she'd built in the isolated years. Him sweeping her into his arms, twirling her around; picking her up from a fall, dusting her off, whispering, Not so loud, my little terror, you'll wake your maman Ã¢â'¬Â¦

No worries. We fought, we struggled, we hurt each other, so what? That's what love is, I think. It's all of it. Tears, anger, joy, struggle. Mostly, it's durable. It lasts. Never once in all of it - the dust, the drought, the fights with you - never once did I stop loving you or Ant or the farm.

Dad held Mama as if she were made of glass. So careful, so concerned for her well-being. It filled Leni with an impotent rage. And then she'd get a glimpse of him with tears in his eyes and the rage would turn soft and slide into something like forgiveness. She didn't know how to corral or change either of these emotions; her love for him was all tangled up in hate. Right now she felt both emotions crowding in on her, each jostling for the lead.

He'd never thought much about silence, but now he knew its every shape and contour. It was a cheap glass jar that trapped old voices and kept them fresh.

She wouldn't have understood how dark a side love could have, how hiding it was the kindest thing you could do sometimes.

While they were virtual roller coasters of emotion, you needed to be calm, always.

Elsa held her children's hands. They stood on the muddy bank and looked up to the bright heavens and sang hymns and Christmas songs, and by the end, none of them cared that the local churches denied them entry or that their clothes were ragged and dirty or that Christmas dinner would be small. They found strength in each other. Elsa and Jean looked at each other as they sang the words be unbroken.

He had the kind of smile that inhabited every part of his face--his eyes, his cheeks; there was even a dimple.

Perhaps that's why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present. 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.

A woman has to be tough as steel up here

For a magnificent moment, the world fell away and she was somewhere else, before now, or long from now, and she wasn't hungry or tired or scared or angry. She simply was.

She'd crawled into her grief and cocooned it around her, unable to care about anyone or anything—

He was trying to make it up to her, asking for forgiveness and seeking redemption all at once, sacrificing himself for her. It was a glimpse of who he'd once been, the poet her maman had fallen in love with. That man, the one before the war, might have known another way, might have found the perfect words to heal their fractured past.

He had abandoned her after all; it filled her with the kind of bone-deep disappointment she knew so well.

She knew that she was making a decision she might regret, but it felt inevitable. "Nothing matters except us.

With no local police and no one to call for help. All 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.

her grandfather had leaned down and whispered, Be brave, into her ear. And then, Or pretend to be. It's all the same.