Quotes from Karen White

impermanence of things and how nothing stayed the same no matter how much you wanted it to.

Stupid people rarely want to hear the truth.

But time changed all things, oxidizing friendships like old copper pots, so they no longer saw their reflection in each other's faces.

I let my voice trail off, unable to explain that the biggest grudge I held was against my younger self, the girl I'd been trying to bury for almost a decade.

I wanted to cry for the little girls we'd been before the world's glaring spotlight eradicated our childish imaginations.

Things always change, Eva. You cannot control change. You can only be prepared for it.

I never thought my actions would cause you to leave. I'm so sorry." I closed my eyes briefly. "It's not what made me leave, Daddy. But it's one of the things that made it easy to stay away.

I'd sat on a bench there with Mabry and Bennett, eating ice cream and making up dramatic stories about the people we'd seen, their hidden lives and dark secrets. Mabry said I gave her nightmares sometimes, that that was the true mark of a storyteller, to make people believe something made-up was real.

I needed to learn that you never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.

Ceecee liked him immediately because of that curl, because of that infraction against perfection.

Didn't it belong to her just a little bit, not in a material way but in the way a house always belonged to all those who had lived and loved and suffered in it? As if it had kept behind a small part of your soul.

worrying makes big shadows of small things.

Ceecee told me to wait to get married, to be sure. Not about how much I loved him, but how much I could bear to lose.

You'd better clean up your own backyard before you start talkin' trash." Because I would bet money—and I'm not a betting person—that each one of those women has something in their closets they'd rather not air. Everybody does. Especially those who are always eager to cast the first stone.

and fallen yet managed to pull themselves back up. People who were brave enough to try again in a place known for its extremes, or simply too hardheaded to admit defeat.

Being brave is feeling frightened and still doing what needs to be done.

But sometimes it's hard to see a person from our past with new eyes. Like they've become a statue to their previously perceived old wonderfulness, and that's all we see – not the real person they are.

I understand the pull of this place, how you can't leave no matter how hard you want to. When your blood runs with salt water, you might as well drop anchor and get comfortable.

I'd understood how salt water ran through some veins and not in others, like a blood type that identified those who belonged here.

I was like a child leaving a gift unwrapped, the anticipation more exciting than the reality.

Learning who you are and changing aren't always the same thing, you know. Sometimes we think we've changed, but all we've done is grow into the person we were always meant to be.

The whole reason why I'd left was to start over and pretend I didn't have a past.

I didn't want who I was to rub off on you too much, like a weak spirit was contagious.

Of course not. I just want you to feel more at home. Not like a visitor." "But that's what I am," Larkin protested. Bitty stood, her knees cracking, and laughed. "You tell yourself that over and over again, sweetie, but it'll never drain the salt water running through your veins. The outgoing tide might suck all the water from the creeks and marshes here, but eventually the ocean pushes it all back where it belongs.