Quotes from Kristin Hannah

It wasn't the fear that mattered in life. It was the choices made when you were afraid. You were brave because of your fear, not in spite of it. "Yes.

Love is what remains when everything else is gone. This is what I should have told my children when we left Texas. What I will tell them tonight. Not that they will understand yet. How could they? I am forty years old, and I only just learned this fundamental truth myself. Love. In the best of times, it is a dream. In the worst of times, a salvation

She sat there a long time, talking to her daddy as if he were sitting right beside her.

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.

But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is not future for us.

it turned out that a parent's disapproval was a powerful, lingering voice that shaped and defined one's self-image.

The sound of his voice reminds me that I am a mother and mothers don't have the luxury of falling apart in front of their children, even when they are afraid, even when their children are adults.

Mama loved him too much to leave him. Still, even now, with her face bruised and swollen. Maybe what she'd always said was true, maybe she couldn't breathe without him, maybe she'd wilt like a flower without

When Elsa had lost her third child—a son who never drew breath—it was Rose who held Elsa and let her cry, and said, Some lives are not ours to hold on to; God makes His choices without us.

The only way we will survive is by being kind. The only way we can get by in this world is through the help we receive from others. No one can do it alone, no matter how great the machines are.

Love is what remains when everything else is gone. This is what I should have told my children when we left Texas. What I will tell them tonight. Not that they will understand yet. How could they? I am forty years old, and I only just learned this fundamental truth myself.

It was a gray, not-quite-rainy day, the kind where the sky was so low it seemed to bump you in the forehead when you dared to venture outside.

Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves. —JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

They'd sewn their lives together in the silent way of women unused to conversation.

But things changed fast. She knew that now. A horse could get old overnight and go lame. A friend could become a stranger just as quickly.

Like her, they held on to the unproven hope/belief that more work might save them.

She'd learned a few things in the last turbulent year about dealing with preteen girls. While they were virtual roller coasters of emotion, you needed to be calm, always.

She gave herself over to the sensations of the kiss, let it become the whole of her universe, and knew finally how it felt to be enough for someone. *

What a burden such a choice must be. For the first time, she saw her own childhood as an adult, from far away, with the wisdom this war had given her.

My childhood, I thought naively, was mine alone, those memories painted in vibrant oil strokes on the canvas of my years.

why add love to the list?" "Love," Isabelle said quietly. "I will add this, though, since I am a mother and we can't help ourselves: A broken heart hurts as badly in wartime as in peace. Say good-bye to your young man well.

His mouth fit hers perfectly, just as it had so many years ago. It started out soft and gentle, that first kiss after so many lost and lonely years. She clung to him, kissing him with everything in her, as if she could draw that essential spark of him into her very soul, as if she could have some piece of him to take away from this magical ride. The

Your dad cleared out our savings account. And they won't give me a credit card unless your father or my father cosigns." She lit up a cigarette. "Sweet Jesus, it's 1974. I have a job. I make money. And a woman can't get a credit card without a man's signature. It's a man's world, baby girl.

She was like one of those animals whose defense mechanism is to blend into the landscape and become invisible. It was her way of dealing with rejection: Say nothing and disappear. Never fight back. If she remained quiet enough, people eventually forgot she was there and left her alone.