Quotes from Catherine Ryan Hyde

I wondered if a white person could ever comment on the minority experience and get it right.

I think the world is just as terrible as beautiful and just as beautiful as terrible.

The one where you appeal to someone's ego. I don't care about that stuff anymore. Whether I'm looked upon as wise or not. I don't need to be right at this point in my life. I don't care what other people choose to do. I just know what I want to do now.

I love my brother Robbie, but not enough to save him. I love my sister Katie, but I've learned to do it from a distance. This is how we grow. Have you noticed that? This is what we call loving each other. No wonder we have wars.

people is that we forget that something unexpected can happen at any time.

an easy smile, which he gives away for free.

I can see how she takes all that physical beauty in. Let's it become apart of her. Like breathing air and eating food, and then using that to make new cells and feed the old ones.

I got that when a person is rude and abusive to me, it's not about me at all. They can say something terrible to me or about me, but they're revealing themselves, not me. It has nothing to do with me. They're just showing me the landscape on the inside of themselves as they project it out onto somebody else.

Most big life events are like that. You think they'll be emotionally one-sided, but when you actually get into them, it's always more complex." - Nathan

Look for strength in unexpected places.

Good to get the truth out into the air," Ham said. "Everything grows best in oxygen and sunlight except secrets and guilt and regrets. They like the dank spaces. Drag them out into the light and they fail to thrive." We

It might be an age thing. I think we get to a certain age where enough of people and their ugly trappings is enough.

Where isn't really the problem. The where isn't to blame for the what.

It's better to do what you can, fitness-wise, than to do nothing at all.

You have a mission. Most of us only wish we did. It's the purest, most untarnished way to live a life. All the universe envies you. All the people, the animals, even the sun and the clouds and the night. If we could trade places with you, we would. So we line up at your back in admiration. We are all with you, Ella.

I just think it's odd how we parse out our empathy," he said. "Why we only have empathy for those who remind us most of ourselves.

Feelings are a funny thing, he realized. They're always more tangled and contradictory and complex than we want them to be. Than we care to admit.

I can't help wondering what the world would be like if our empathy muscle were a bit more developed.

winter. Chloe throws them bits of trail mix to avoid

whatever happens, I'll be okay. People get by in all kinds of situations. All over the world people are getting by on almost nothing. Losing things they think they can't live without. Or at least that they think they can't be happy without. But then it's pretty hard to be happy . . . you know . . . if it's dependent on some material possession not going away. I don't want to live like that.

See now why I hate to go outside so much?" "Yeah. I guess I do. But you gotta do it anyway, right? I mean, it's life. You gotta do life. Right?" "Not really," Billy said. "You don't have to. Lots of people don't do life any more. They just stop at some point. And once you stop, it's really hard to get started again. But then, once you get started again, it's kind of hard to stop.

Only I can control the messages in my head. I may not have installed them, but, with great effort and a lot of practice, I can at least choose what to play at what time. These are the best two life lessons I ever learned on a tough trail in the great outdoors: One, not to look up and see how far I still have to climb. Instead to look back and see how far I've climbed already. When I see what I just did, I know I can do what comes next. Given time. And, two, to give myself time.

The more I research the bodymind, the more I get that the only workable path to workable health is to forgive the unforgivable in spite of its unforgivability. Otherwise we just destroy our own cells with the byproducts of all that hate. We

When you're working with dementia patients, life is hard for both of you, but at least you don't have to keep coming up with new repartee. And I really don't say that to make light of the situation. I say it to find light in the situation, which I honestly think is a favor to all involved.