Susan Wiggs

“Pop, why didn't you ever marry again?""I was a good husband to your mother," Pop said. "I would not be a good husband to another woman. It would not be fair, because I gave everything I had to my first marriage. Love is like that for some people.”

“An event in the present evokes past sensations. But science couldn't explain how a foolish heart had the power to overrule common sense.”

“It's best to know what your issues are before going ahead with a relationship.”

“Everybody's in love when they're eighteen. And everybody gets dumped.”

“She caught herself working so hard at mothering that she forgot to enjoy her children. -from ~Homecoming Season~”

“There is something about losing your mother that is permanent and inexpressable - a wound that will never quite heal.”

“Scary thought - what if I get to know myself and I'm someone I don't want to be?”

“Fear and love were sometimes the same thing both necessary unavoidable. Now she understood that it was okay to bleed if you know how to heal.”

“at the center of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power.”

“I love you Daddy. How hard was that to say Why hadn’t she said it before Because she wasn’t sure she meant it or was she afraid it would be one-sided”

“You're never alone when you're reading a book.”

“It is a great virtue to be needed. Greater, even, than being liked”

“You have seven writers in your basement?”Donald nods, signing, “They like it here. There’s a poet, a couple of novelists, an opera librettist, an essay writer . . . . They don’t usually make much trouble.”

“It isn’t fair, but maybe that’s the whole point. Fairness has no part in real life, and she took that lesson away from the Hotel Angeline with her.”

“She reflects on the girl she had been in this place, and the things she had to do in order to survive. For a long time, she’d had to live her child- hood backward, forced to step up and take charge of things that were thrust into her hands.”

“Already, Seattle is taking hold of her. She still holds Sedona in the dry tan of her skin and in her hair, but the fine mist of the Northwest is making its way to places she didn’t know were parched.”

“Love wasn't love if she had to try too hard to feel it.”

“Sometimes if you want something badly enough, you make it happen through sheer force of will.”

“Wishful thinking is a powerful force.”

“Kids aren't supposed to have to figure out how to be happy. They just are.”

“There's a kind of love that has the power to save you, to get you through life. It's like breathing. You have to do it or you'll die. And when it's over, your soul starts to bleed, Livvy. There's no pain in the world like it, I swear. If you were feeling that now, you wouldn't be able to sit up straight or have a coherent conversation.”

“Here's the thing about broken hearts. You can always survive them. Always. No matter how deep the hurt, the capacity to heal and move on is even stronger.”

“If you're drowning for real, and nobody believes you, then you sure as hell better figure out how to swim.”

“There can be no fooling ourselves into thinking this is something other than what it is—the willful ejection of Molly from our nest. It’s too late for second thoughts, anyway. She has to be moved into her dorm in time for freshman orientation. It’s been marked on the kitchen calendar for weeks—the expiration date on her childhood.”

“Her name was a silent song on his lips. Her love was like a circle in the water, radiating ever outward, inevitably encompassing even the remotest of hearts.”

“He could not name precisely the special quality she possessed. A glow. An exuberance. An aggressive and determined joy that gave her the courage to push past his defenses, to confront him with unflinching courage, to look into his heart and to see something there worth fighting for.”

“She knew the soothing power of a human touch on aching flesh. Knew the strange bond that formed when two creatures united in mutual need, one hurting, the other healing.”

“Insults sting but a little when they stem from a man's ignorance.”

“You always look on the dark side of life. I believe in capturing the moment...Joy is so fleeting. You never know when it might be snatched away.”

“She had always been good at dreaming, but what she had never done before was believe a dream could actually come true. She believed now. The wonder of setting sail created possibilities she had never considered before.”

“She watched the gap between ship and shore grow to a huge gulf. Perhaps this was a little like dying, the departed no longer visible to the others, yet both still existed, only in different worlds.”

“My adult life has been a patchwork of projects, most of which were fleeting fancies of overreaching vision. I tend to seize on things, only to abandon them due to a lack of time, talent or inclination.”

“That’s how it is with infants. The minute the pain’s gone, so are the tears. If more people would do that, the world would be a happier place.”

“The time for falling in love was when you were emotionally available and free of cares, when it didn’t matter what time you came home or how late you were getting up the next day. When you had hours and hours to spend gazing into each other’s eyes and even longer hours making love, uninterrupted. If you wait for the perfect time to fall in love…it’ll never happen.”

“The human heart was such a complex organ, fragile and sturdy all at once.”

“I know you got your heart broken but I know the heart can heal, too. And I know what it feels like to love again. I love you so much, I can’t sleep at night. Sometimes I forget to breathe. And in a hundred years, that’s never going to change.”

“What's difficult to understand about German opera? It's always the same. Boy meets girl, boy falls in love, girl gets devoured by horrible winged creature with claws.”

“She knew with painful certainty that the opposite of love was not hate, but indifference.”

“She was the living, breathing proof that the hard things in life didn't have to defeat you - or even define you.”

“No one had ever told them they might need each other one day, an for some reason, they hadn't figured it out themselves.”

“When you're with the person you love, you're home.”

“You are TSTL. I beg your pardon. Too stupid to live.”