Marisa de los Santos

“I spoke, I listened, and my heart broke, which is to say that it didn't break at all but became suddenly aware of its own wholeness in such a way it hurt like hell.”

“Whatever word you use to describe diving into the deepest part of a human. Take your pick; they're all woefully inadequate, but they're also all we have.”

“But you're wrong. Happiness is EARNED, like everything else. It's achieved.”

“Clare concentrated on the words trying hard to press them into her memory and wishing they were solid objects that she could keep and carry around with her.”

“Linney moves in the world with such firm, certain steps, being with her can make you forget your own confusion, at least for a little while.”

“Clare wasn't worried anymore about their being mean to each other. She imagined that someday she'd be part of a friendship in which she and the friend thought so highly of each other and were so sure of this that they could say anything.”

“It's ok to feel happy, right? She hoped he'd know what she meant.”

“You know what I mean. That moment in a relationship in which, at the same time you discover you've been floating in air for 5 and 1/2 weeks you also discover that your feet have dropped a little closer to earth.”

“But every time, what brought me to my senses was my conviction that before a person dropped a new life into this world, she should probably get a real one herself.”

“Maybe she would remember who he was, and maybe she would come back.”

“My life - my real life - started when a man walked into it, a handsome stranger in a perfectly cut suit, and, yes I know how that sounds.”

“I stand here on this spring day in the center of my life. Chaos, din, and beauty. For a moment, I am still.”

“Soldiers in the heat of battle; death-row prisoners; explorers stranded in deserts, jungles, on mountaintops; anyone sick or lost or just tired and bewildered: we all wanted our mothers.”

“I know how syrupy this sounds, how dull, provincial, and possibly whitewashed, but what can I do? Happy childhoods happen”

“Yes, it’s true, what I said earlier: A real life doesn’t mean geting what you want; the achievement, the privilege, too, is knowing what you love.But getting what you love? Having what you love love you back? Oh, my friend, it’s miracle: your one tiny life’s head-on collision with divinity. ”

“I don't think love is blind, but wanting to be in love, that's probably blind.”

“Still Dev missed him. Not all the time or even very often, but now and then, missing would hit Dev, throw him off balance, a sudden, undeniable ache to know his father, how his voice sounded, what his face did when he read the paper or looked at his son. And the missing wasn't fair; it wasn't earned. In fact, the missing, the searching, the imagining were so unfair that when you put them all together, they looked a lot like betrayal.”

“It's a well-known fact. All women are clinically insane, but especially ballet dancers. Psycho. extremely psycho. Trust me.”

“We talked and talked and talked. Maybe love comes in at the eyes, but not nearly as much as it comes in at the ears, at least in my experience. As we talked, lights flicked on inside my head; by the end of the night I was a planterium.”

“Jimmy Stewart is always and indisputably the best man in the world, unless Cary Grant should happen to show up.”

“Even if someone wasn't perfect or even especially good, you couldn't dismiss the love they felt. Love was always love; it had a rightness all its own, even if the person feeling the love was full of wrongness.”