Quotes from The Story of Beautiful Girl

Rachel Simon ·  346 pages

Rating: (23.2K votes)


“A person comes into the world with a fist-and a grasp. Yes, we are built to fight one another, but also to embrace. How cleverly we are created.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“There were two kinds of students who liked the library: those who devoured one book after another and those who savored the same book repeatedly. Now she understood those rereaders differently ... she realized it was not the rereading that led to fresh insights. It was the rereader-- because when a person is changing inside, there are inevitably new things to see.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“There are two kinds of hope: the kind you couldn't do anything about and the kind you could. And even if the kind you could do something about wasn't what you'd originally wanted, it was still worth doing. A rainy day is better than no day. A small happiness can make a big sadness less sad.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“Silence made space for other people's words, which was important for those who needed to be listened to.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“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.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl



“She felt so lovely in his hands. She felt so loved in his eyes.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“How many other lives are hidden, and hearts are seeking? How many would give anything in the world to be held by the person they love?”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“A small happiness can make a big sadness less sad.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“she realized it was not the rereading that led to fresh insights. It was the rereader—because when a person is changing inside, there are inevitably new things to see”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“Sometimes you think you know what you want, she said, hugging her children, until you see how much more you can have.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl



“...she had wondered which was worse: the sudden good-bye you know is a good-bye or the long good-bye you have to guess.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“He thought that maybe when you're making your way forward into your life, it just looks higgledy-piggledy, the way, if you were a fly walking across one of Beautiful Girl's drawings all you'd be able to see was green, then blue, then yellow. Only if you got in the air before the swat came down would you see the colors belonged to a big drawing, with the green for this part of the picture, the blue and yellow for others, every color being just where if was meant to be. Could that be what life was?”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“And Lynnie understood. There were two kinds of hope: the kind you couldn't do anything about and the kind you could. And even if the kind you could do something about wasn't what you'd originally wanted, it was still worth doing. A rainy day is better than no day. A small happiness can make a big sadness less sad.
p 313

"The sky was crying outside, and as she watched the drops come down, she thought: 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."
p 318

Lynnie about the lost hope of finding Homan, the hope of seeing the lighthouse/connecting with her daughter and how selling her art work was doing something about it.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“Follow your inclination. It will take you to the thoughts you'd never known you'd had.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“Well, ain't that just the way of the world. Everything come to an end, whether you wants it to or not. All that nature out there: over. The Snare: dead and gone. Even a love that make a man giddy and romantic, that give him a hope and joy he never known, that brave him into taking a slingshot to the impossible and bringing it almost complete to its knees -- even a love like that come to an end. Life just ashes to ashes and dust to dust. And there is nothing you can do about it neither. (Homan)”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl



“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"
Lynnie p 228-229”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“How many others are out there? How many other lives are hidden, and hearts are seeking? How many would give anything in the world to be held by the person they love?”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“He could not talk himself out of pain any longer. He had no one to be strong for. So finally, he cried. He cried with deep sobs, head bent to the ground, palms pressed to his eyes. He cried so hard that sorrow rushed out of his face. He cried until he felt like the sea.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“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.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“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.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl



“There were two kinds of hope: the kind you couldn’t do anything about and the kind you could. And even if the kind you could do something about wasn’t what you’d originally wanted, it was still worth doing. A rainy day is better than no day. A small happiness can make a big sadness less sad.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“And she’d felt an opening in her chest where she hadn’t known anything was closed.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“Raising kids isn't carpentry," he said "Forget measuring twice and cutting once, You measure over and over everyday”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“Follow your inclination. It will take you to thoughts you'd never know you'd had”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl


“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.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl



Video

About the author

Rachel Simon
Born place: in New Jersey, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“I crossed my arms, stilled by a revelation that had been mounting in me ever since our arrival in this bower of poured concrete: that as the “subject,” I was both the center of attention and completely extraneous. The feeling brought with it an eerie, stultifying familiarity; I was still the model, after all. I was modeling my life.”
― Jennifer Egan, quote from Look at Me


“To fear what you do not understand is to mistake ignorance for safety.”
― Ginn Hale, quote from Lord of the White Hell, Book 1


“who a person is will ultimately determine if their brains, talents, competencies, energy, effort, deal-making abilities, and opportunities will succeed. It”
― Henry Cloud, quote from Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality


“Our Savior kneels down and gazes upon the darkest acts of our lives. But rather than recoil in horror, he reaches out in kindness and says, "I can clean that if you want." And from the basin of his grace, he scoops a palm full of mercy and washes away our sin.”
― Max Lucado, quote from Just Like Jesus: Learning to Have a Heart Like His


“He wondered if he was simply starting to crumble under the weight of all the responsibility and was now on a downward trajectory to a point where only fear remained. He”
― Henning Mankell, quote from One Step Behind


Interesting books

Rock Chick Revenge
(28.6K)
Rock Chick Revenge
by Kristen Ashley
Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy
(19.7K)
Welcome to Shadowhun...
by Cassandra Clare
Kids of Appetite
(4K)
Kids of Appetite
by David Arnold
Mine to Possess
(22.2K)
Mine to Possess
by Nalini Singh
Mother of Pearl
(18.1K)
Mother of Pearl
by Melinda Haynes
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
(8.5K)
The Pleasure of Find...
by Richard Feynman

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.