Quotes from Kristin Hannah

Alice started to cry. It came with no sound, no shuddering, no childlike hysterics, just a soul-deep release that turned into moisture and dripped down her puffy pink cheeks. She touched her tears, frowning. Then she looked up at Julia and whimpered two words before she fell asleep. 'Real hurts.'

She knew the difference between fact and fiction, but she couldn't abandon her love stories.

You couldn't give up you for them. But what if you wanted them more than you wanted a singular powerful you?

In his face, I see the whole of my life. I see a baby who came to me long after I'd given up Ã¢â'¬Â¦ and a hint of the beauty I once had. I see Ã¢â'¬Â¦ my life in his eyes.

It felt as if she were bleeding - but it wasn't blood that leaked out of her, not something that could be easily transfused. Instead she was losing her dreams.

but sometimes one person can hold you up in life, keep you standing, and without that hand to hold, you can find yourself free-falling no matter how strong you used to be, no matter how hard you try to remain steady.

I might screw up, I might embarrass you, I might yell at you, but I will never, ever stop loving you. You're my first born. The first time I held you... I fell in love so hard it cracked my bones.

I'm so lucky to have you, Leni," Mama said, trying to organize her cards with one hand. "We're a team," Leni said. "Peas in a pod." "Two of a kind." Words they said all the time to each other; words that felt a little hollow now. Maybe even sad.

I love you," he said against her lips. "I love you, too," she said but the words that always seemed so big felt small now. What was love when put up against war?

All at once, it seemed, the leaves of cottonwood trees around the cabin turned golden and whispered to themselves, then curled into black flutes and floated to the ground in crispy, lacy heaps.

I thought change started from within." "Sometimes. Sometimes it's forced upon you.

Lately, though, I find myself thinking about the war and my past, about the people I lost. Lost. It makes it sound as if I misplaced my loved ones; perhaps I left them where they don't belong and turned away, too confused to retrace my steps. They are not lost. Nor are they in a better place. They are gone. As I approach the end of my years, I know that grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us.

And no one drank just one shot of tequila.

Marriages go through hard times. Sometimes you have to get in there and fight for your love. That's the only way for it to get better.

Life keeps going. You think it'll stop, wait for you to be done crying, but it just keeps moving. Don't spend your time looking back. You don't want to miss what's ahead.

The heat made people crazy. They woke from their damp bedsheets and went in search of a glass of water, surprised to find that when their vision cleared, they were holding instead the gun they kept hidden in the bookcase.

Alaska didn't create character; it revealed it.

I look at people who aren't us and I hate them.

The measure of a man comes down to moments, spread out like dots of pain on the canvas on life. Everything you were, everything you'll someday be, resides in the small, seemingly ordinary choices of everyday life.....Each decision seems as insignificant as a left turn on an unfamiliar road when you have no destination in mind. But the decisions accumulate until you realize one day that they've made you the man that you are.

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

For years he'd strived to make a difference in the world, and he'd worked like a dog to make that happen, and yet here he was, a man sitting on a dock with his children, and never had he felt more certain that his words mattered.

Fear is smart until…" He headed for the door, paused as he reached for the knob. "Until what?" He looked back at her. "Until you realize you're afraid of the wrong thing.

Memories are who we are, Tul. In the end, that's all the luggage you take with you. Love and memories are what last.

She is like a child picking at a scab, unable to stop herself even though she knows it will hurt.