Quotes from Rachel Simon

The reactions of others were actually another lesson she'd learned about change. When change happened to an individual, it happened to everyone around her - sometimes in ways she wished for, though sometimes in ways she wished against.

Just because I am not a saint does not mean that I am a demon

I realize, as the tightness yields in my shoulders and hips and feet, that Beth might well have wanted me to meet her drivers because I needed them, too." p 167

When I speak of religion I mean a constant inward sense of communion with God.

Happiness, I have grasped, is a destination, like strawberry Fields. Once you find the way in, there you are, and you'll never feel low again.

A rainy day can actually be a very important day. And a small hope isn't really small if it makes a lost hope less sad.

In our days of prosperity it is more difficult to sustain a religious spirit than in times of adversity, because we are apt to forget that God who has bountifully given may also take away.

Martha giggled; the baby was holding her. Astounding. A person comes into the world with a fist—and a grasp, she thought. Yes, we are built to fight one another, but also to embrace. How cleverly we are created.

A rainy day can actually be a very important day. And a small hope isn't really small if it makes a lost hope less sad.

And she'd felt an opening in her chest where she hadn't known anything was closed.

Looking back in time was very exciting to me. But looking forward is more challenging—nothing unfolds as you anticipate, and it's the small things, not the huge geologic shifts, that make or break you.

Raising kids isn't carpentry, he said Forget measuring twice and cutting once, You measure over and over everyday

I'm diff rent! I'm diff rent! as if she were hurling a challenge with all her might beyond the limits of the sky.

S]he spontaneously threw back her head and trumpeted,I'm diff rent! I'm diiff rent! as if she were hurling a challenge with all her might beyond the limits of the sky.

At the landing, Mommy turns to us and says, "Let's let the puppy go pish," so she opens the door and he scoots into the snow outside.

Maybe this is how it goes, I think, watching Beth and Melanie, remembering the people I have loved, and the ones I wish I hadn't lost. Maybe we are all Beths, boarding other people's life journeys, or letting them hop aboard ours. For a while we ride together. A few minutes, a few miles. Companions on the road, sharing our air and our view, our feet swaying to the same beat. Then you get off at your stop, or I get off at mine. Unless we decide to stay on longer together.

Follow your inclination. It will take you to thoughts you'd never know you'd had

In the Big Apple, you get people like Beth on every bus, and nobody would say a word. You get races mixing, and it's no big deal. Old people, young people, everyone keeps their mouth shut. There's just more tolerance there.

Self-pity is a worse adversary than ignorance.

and Homan learned a language of pointing and jabbing and fist closing and finger flicking, frowning and shrugging and waving and saluting, brow raising and eye narrowing and lip pursing and head tilting. His anger ran off, and happiness moved in.

Follow your inclination. It will take you to thoughts you'd never known you'd had.

Love is when you care for somebody, and you be willing to go out of your way and do anything for that person, and to take care of that person, and if they have problems, that you can help them out any way you know how. If they sick, that you can bring 'em medicine, or give 'em a helping hand. That's what love is.

not thinking of what I can get, but thinking of what I can give

two people: the one inside that was the truth, and the one outside that almost everyone believed him to be.