Quotes from Catherine Ryan Hyde

Whatever big hole people got in their heart, they want something to fill it up. That's what he wants from you. But he'll never get it. Because you can't ever fill a hole in you with somebody else. But everybody keeps trying, though, even though it never brings nothing but heartache to both parties.

decided the situation had thrust me back into a childhood mode—made me feel like a kid again—and in that feeling, there were no tools to climb out of the discomfort, just as there had been no tools when I was young. And

You have a lot to learn about the world, baby girl. Nothing is more dangerous than words." "That's stupid. What about a gun? A gun can kill you dead." "Only your body," Billy said. "It can't kill your soul. Words can kill your soul.

He'd once overheard his mom telling her best friend, Judy, "Almost everything is easier to get into than it is to get out of.

Human nature. After something works out, we forget the frustration of the steps we took in getting there.

get it. How did you not know?

it's a funny thing about your darkest moments. They have a life of their own. They come around because they've got you pinned. Because they can. The harder you try to push them back into the shadows, the stronger they grow. They draw power from your resistance.

what, or to whom? She'd long ago given up on any sort of God—probably while she was still a child—particularly the one forced on her by her parents. It seemed wrong to drag that relationship back into play now simply because she was afraid. It felt two-faced and selfish. She

have always felt," Nathan said, "that the truth is simply the truth. And perhaps does not exist for us to bend and revise. Or even filter to

It was unnecessarily hurtful, and not intended to serve the common good.

It was one of those nights that's a really good time to have four walls and a door to close.

guess in a lot of ways I've partially gotten over the traumatic event of her passing. But what you don't realize, until you have to live it, is that it's the absence of the person that's the trouble. The ongoing absence. And when you're missing someone, a longer time without them doesn't solve the problem. The longer you don't see someone, the more you miss them.

suit the feelings of those we love and want to protect.

If it slices through walls and pulls stuff out of me, stuff that hurts, why am I sitting here listening to it? Why didn't I walk the other way?" "Because it's better to feel it." "Not if it hurts." "Especially if it hurts. Remember, it was in there to begin with. And as an old friend of mine used to say, better out than in.

I figured I must be more present now, in this perfectly excruciating moment when my fondest wish was to be absent.

I have no idea why time does what it does. Or why people do what we do. It's all a mystery to me.

Just because I don't think normally doesn't mean I don't know normal thinking when I hear it.

People can do all manner of things if it's important enough. If a mother can lift a car off her son, maybe she can die at just the right time to save him.

Because it seems we get over everything, given enough time. And I guess in a lot of ways I've partially gotten over the traumatic event of her passing. But what you don't realize, until you have to live it, is that it's the absence of the person that's the trouble. The ongoing absence. And when you're missing someone, a longer time without them doesn't solve the problem. The longer you don't see someone, the more you miss them.

Don't waste any energy on anything but what's in front of you.

But what you don't realize, until you have to live it, is that it's the absence of the person that's the trouble. The ongoing absence. And when you're missing someone, a longer time without them doesn't solve the problem. The longer you don't see someone, the more you miss them.

gone. I figured you had some kind of secret. I

I can't entirely explain why, but in that moment my life felt like a better place than it had been for as long as I could remember.

It's like life has given you this huge challenge to make sure that what was running in your family stops with you and doesn't go on any more than it has.