Quotes from The Lucy Variations

Sara Zarr ·  309 pages

Rating: (4.8K votes)


“The world was full of beauty.

She wanted to grab hold of it and take it down into her bones. Yet always it seemed beyond her grasp. Sometimes only by a little, like now. The thinnest membrane.

Usually, though, by miles.

She couldn’t expect to be that kind of happy all the time. She knew that.

But sometimes you could. Sometimes you should be allowed a tiny bit of joy that should stay with you for more than five minutes. That wasn’t too much to ask. To have a moment like this, and be able to hold on to it.

To cross that membrane, and feel alive.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from The Lucy Variations


“There's a lot that is awful. That's the struggle of getting old. To make sure you don't let what's hard...obscure the beauty.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from The Lucy Variations


“Or she could return to the beginning, to the first moment she`d started to feel like playing wasn`t for her anymore. But she coudn`t rehash every hurt, every disappointment, every moment that felt like betrayal. And expect to arrive anywhere good.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from The Lucy Variations


“Love.
That was the piece that had been missing, way before Prague. That was that piece that had been missing in her life until Will came and made her feel it, for their work together and for the beauty and also for him, though it was hard sometimes to separate those things. Maybe she didn`t love Will like she thought. Or couldn’t in this moment.
But what they’d done together, what had been open by becoming so close, she could still love that. She could love their conversations and their hours at the piano and the results of their work. She could even love the way it hurt right now, because when was the last time she gave her whole heart to something?
That, all of it, belonged to her. She didn’t have to let Will take it away, the way she’d let her grandfather, the business, herself, take her love for music.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from The Lucy Variations


“Why do people...we...why do we drag around like life is so awful?' Why did they forget that there was so much to love? He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. 'I guess...because there's a lot that is awful. That's the struggle of getting old. To make sure you don't let what's hard or painful or whatever obscure the beauty.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from The Lucy Variations



“The sight of them (her friends) let a little air into her soul.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from The Lucy Variations


“That's what music did. It made you feel.
...
Music, her grandfather always told her, was language. A special language, a gift from the Muses, something all people are born understanding but few people can thoroughly translate.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from The Lucy Variations


“You are beautiful, Lucy. Inside and out. And that hurts, too. It hurts more specifically. More personally.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from The Lucy Variations


“Das wird sich alles finden.
Everything will be okay.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from The Lucy Variations


“Why do we drag around like life is so awful?' Why did they forget that there was so much to love?”
― Sara Zarr, quote from The Lucy Variations



“Because every thought she had, everything she observed around her, every conversation, every experience, everything that made her laugh - she imagined telling him, or him watching. She wanted herself, the particular way he saw her and the way she like to be seen by him, reflected back, over and over.
It was like there was this letter to him in her head that she was always writing and never getting to send.
It reminded her of being a kid and making a new best friend, how the two of you made your own world with just that person, and never wanted to leave it.
And though she'd never been in love, it reminded her of that, too.”
― Sara Zarr, quote from The Lucy Variations


About the author

Sara Zarr
Born place: The United States
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