Quotes from Catherine Ryan Hyde

Do you know what forever love is? Pearl taught me. It's when you love somebody so much that no matter what happens that'll never change. Like even if you're gone. It's still the same. Even if you die. You die, but not the love. Not forever love. Know what I mean?

I know this is going to come as a shock to me, but I am leaving me. Perhaps I`ll say I could not have seen this coming, but truthfully things have been wrong between me for some time. Time heals and I`m sure in time I`ll build a new life without me

It shouldn't matter whether you understand it or not, August. Or whether it would be enough of a challenge for you or not. It's Seth's dream. Not yours.

You know, you think about who you might meet and when they might come. You always know that someday a door will open and in will come the one you've waited for. And then the waiting is done. And the rest of your life can begin. And the minute I looked up and saw you there, I thought, There he is.

I guess if you're really a friend, you overlook certain things. Its easy to be friends with someone who only says things you want to hear. I guess if you're really a friend, you have to cut a friend some slack.

And here is the thing about experiences that wake you up, Raymond: You try to get back to sleep, but it's easier said than done. Once you're awake, you're awake. Good luck hitting the snooze button, my friend.

So if you run around putting a pillow under people to cushion their fall . . . well, I'm just not sure it's quite the favor we think it is.

I no longer think I lack judgment about men. I will never again say my instincts are poor, no sir, because how do I keep finding this same guy over and over? I am beginning to think I have a very keen sense of judgment, only it would seem that it is on somebody else's side.

Funny how a thing like that can be so damned important, but you don't know it's important until an instant later in the big scheme of time. Then you go back and try to retrieve it. You tell yourself it's in there somewhere. But it's really in that no-man's-land of the moment before you woke up and started paying attention to your own life.

That's how most of the last fifty years of my life disappeared, even though I didn't know it before now. And believe me, that's all it takes. One little kiss and then you've thrown your lot in with someone, and your whole life has to be built around him. And all the parts of you that don't fit with him have to go into hiding, and all the ones that do have to come to the surface and act like they're the whole of you. The

All the boundaries of the world disappeared after a good snow. Nathan had always noticed that. The seemingly sturdy, dependable dividing lines between his yard and his neighbor's yard, or the sidewalk and the street, simply disappeared. Erased by white. As if the world were advising him not to put too much faith in such markings. That perhaps these lines had never been entirely real to begin with.

We do crazy shit because we're broken.

I feel that the truth is simply the truth. And that to shield someone from it is only a manner of treating that person with a lack of respect.

Since we all know for a fact that we're all going to die, why don't we all treat each other like we could lose each other at any minute?

And then, every time I didn't see her, there was a fall involved. I thought about dancing on the fifth-floor ledge outside out apartment. Every train she wasn't on felt something like hitting the pavement from five floors up. So maybe my father was right about that. Maybe happiness and excitement really are dangerous things.

Other people always bring complications. That's just the nature of human relationships. You can't separate people from their complications. Uncomplicated and alone are more or less the same thing.

In certain moments I suspect life knows exactly what it's doing.

You have no choice but to live through whatever's happening. I mean . . . as opposed to what? If you're going to continue to live, then you're going to deal with it. You have no choice. You can say, 'I'm going to fall apart now.

People remember what they want to remember and forget what they want to forget.

when you decide to be alone or have a family, you're pretty much choosing between feeling lonely or feeling aggravated.

But Paying It Forward is about spontaneously offering favors, not needing to say yes when someone asks too much of you. And also, it's about kindness rather than niceness. There's a difference. Kindness is spontaneous and real. Niceness just mostly wants to be liked.

All I know is that you can't force yourself to feel something you don't.

Accepting things. That's what the talk was about. About how insane it is to try to pretend something isn't a certain way, or that you can make it another way, just because you don't like it.

If it takes you apart, that's not love. Love puts you back together.