Diane Chamberlain · 522 pages
Rating: (39.6K votes)
“She felt happy these days, yet there was always an undercurrent of sadness just below the surface”
“You got dealt some crappy cards. But you're the one who has to decide how to play them.”
“Just know, my darling girl, that if I could, I would call you every day of your life just to say "I love you" with nothing else attached to those words. No criticism. No advice. No requests. Just to say I love you.”
“Every single person who comes into your life, from a doctor to a trash collector, can teach you something if you let them.”
“when it comes to making a decision, look at both sides, listen to your heart, then pick one and dive in.”
“I said I was afraid and she told me to think about a time I felt brave and take that feeling into the situation with me. It worked. It helped.”
Corinne leaned away from the Plexiglas, horrified.
“Of course, since that time, I’ve learned much more about the technique,” her mother said. “I’ve learned to make it much more elegant, but the basics are still the same. Take that old calm, confident feeling with you into the new situation. I used it or a variant of it with clients all the time.” She knit her eyebrows, looking hard at Corinne. “I used it for evil during the kidnapping,” she said. “Now you can use it for good.”
“But somethings are just too important to let fear stand in the way.”
“I think the important thing about making a decision is just to make it. Otherwise you can go nuts thinking about the pros and cons.”
“So, when it comes to making a decision, look at both sides, listen to your heart, then pick one and dive in.”
“The cost of doing something would be terrific; the cost of doing nothing even greater.”
“done for the last few days has been completely wrong, even though you did it with the best of intentions. This is the risk you agreed to take. There are always consequences.” “Can I leave the baby with you?” she asked.”
“You got dealt some crappy cards. But you're the one who has to decide how to play them.”
“seen that quick alteration of her features”
“All he needed was a wheel in his hand and four on the road.”
“THE HABIT OF NARRATION, of crafting something miraculous out of the commonplace, was hard to break. Narration came naturally after a time spent in the company of talking scarecrows or disappearing cats; it was, in its own way, a method of keeping oneself grounded, connected to the thin thread of continuity that ran through all lives, no matter how strange they might become. Narrate the impossible things, turn them into a story, and they could be controlled.”
“What scrunched under our overshoes as we trudged through the stubble of the grainfield was the nasty mix of moistureless snow and windblown dirt that we called “snirt.”
“There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all sophomores.”
“After all this kind of fanfare, and even more, I came to a point where I needed solitude and to just stop the machine of 'thinking' and 'enjoying' what they call 'living,' I just wanted to lie in the grass and look at the clouds...”
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