33 Quotes by Adrienne Brodeur

Desperate to become enriched by books, I sometimes barely remembered what I’d read, yet the unconscious effect of so many sentences felt cumulative, like recurring dreams.

I knew only what pleased my mother; I didn’t have a moral compass. It would be years before I understood the forces that shaped who she was and who I became and recognized the hurt that we both caused.

I turned to memory, knowing full well that it is revisionist and that each time we remember something, we alter it slightly, massaging our perspective and layering it with new understanding in order to make meaning in the present.

If there was one truth that I’d learned from all my reading, it was this: Happy endings do not apply to everyone. Someone is always left out of that final, jubilant scene. This time, that someone was me.

We spoke on the phone regularly and turned to text when she could no longer talk. What would I do without her? Her answer came in her final text message to me, written on the morning of her death: Where is Nora Ephron when we need her? I took this to mean “Embrace the mess, live fully, carry on.

The lonely feeling comes from not feeling known.

You can read your way into a whole new narrative for yourself.” Margot promised.

Loneliness is not about how many people you have around. It’s about whether or not you feel connected. Whether or not you’re able to be yourself.

His response was incomprehensible to me. How could you not want to know... Wasn’t curiosity a simple fact of human nature?