Quotes from Catherine Ryan Hyde

A beam of light sweeps down through the skylight in the roof and makes him look like the chosen one, which I often suspect he just might be. In that deep place where I believe almost nothing, I am tempted to believe that - a light, irritating tickle of belief.

if you meet someone you don't like, or who doesn't treat you right, try to reserve judgment, because you don't know what that person's going through, and it's probably not so much about you at all.

I was wondering if Chester was going to have any kind of memorial. I figured probably not. Clearly his sons wanted nothing to do with him. Ellie was a new grandmother, and not wanting to travel. And who else was there? Obviously no one, or I wouldn't have been roped into taking over his care. It felt like the best possible advertisement for kindness. Treat people well, otherwise you might die and no one will notice or find it especially relevant to their life.

It's a hard thing to explain, but in some ways if you're broken, you're always broken. In some ways. It's like the difference between a china mug that's lying in pieces on your floor or one that's been carefully glued back together: it might not look as pretty as a brand-new one, and you might have to be a little more careful with it, but at least you can drink out of it. It works.

It's not only possible, it pretty much describes every human being on the planet. Everybody is a good person and a bad person at the same time. The only real variation is in the balance. How much good to how much bad. When a person has a bigger good side, we call him a good person. But it's never absolute.

Nearly everything is easier to get into than it is to get out of.

But they suggest something to get you out of what you're feeling, or they find some reason why it's all for the best. I don't understand why people can't just join you in your grief for a moment.

She was the love of my life.' But that's too easy. Wait till you have to get right down to who's gonna take out the trash on a night when the mercury dips into single digits. Once you get that worked out, I'll believe you.

I'm sorry you are having trouble being happy right now, Raymond. We all take turns, I think.

Sometimes people are scared of a thing that won't hurt them. But they're not scared for no reason. They're just not scared for the reason they think they are.

Not that Bella wasn't pretty. Grace thought she was. But she wasn't thin.

But people can change. And sometimes they can change because of what they see in you. The way you are can inspire somebody. So I would say . . . just be a really good, clear example of what you hope both of you can be.

Try not to be so sorry, my young friend. Most of what you regret in this world is not of your own making.

It flitted through her mind without actual words that skin is an odd thing for the world to make a fuss about, especially when, with your eyes closed, it all feels more or less the same. "Over

But there was a definite sense that all bets were off now. The line she had so carefully toed all her life was just a smudge in the dirt behind her. Bea did not feel inclined to look back. Life was new. Not good. Just new.

But there was no way to slice it that did not feel like a loss. He would simply have to file it away with all the other things—both small and large—that should not have been asking too much from life, but which life had taken from him all the same.

We're kids. People keep stuff from kids. They think we're supposed to stay all pure or something until we grow up, and nothing should upset us. So they whisper about bad stuff behind our backs so we don't get upset. But it's so totally useless, because then at the same time they're always doing stuff that's really upsetting.

It was actually harder to think about moving forward into whatever unknown situation they had planned for me than to ditch out and go back to what I knew. What I knew was terrible, but at least I knew it, and there's something that's almost a comfort in that.

Funny how we do things before there's even time to think how it will turn out.

was grateful, because the world looked beautiful in that big storm, and because I knew that somewhere in the world there was somebody who didn't have a can of hot soup, and I did.

My name is Wilhelmina," she said, "but call me Willie. I like it much better. I hate the name Wilhelmina.

When my parents called "lights out," I was the kid under the covers, finishing my book quietly by flashlight. This is passion that can't be taught. Encouraged. But not taught.

You see something you like in a man, so you ask him in, but what comes in is all of him. Not only the parts you took a liking to, but the many parts that don't fit with you at all.

Just for a moment, Ethan felt his view of life, of the world, stretched painfully. He had never realized that something so frightening could also be beautiful. That a sight could strike fear into his heart and at the same time make him feel privileged to have seen it.