84 Quotes by Alan Brennert

She learned what ’ohana truly meant, and that she was a part of it. She began to understand that none of this could replace or usurp the family she had always known, but only enriched what she already possessed. With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized: I am more than I was an hour ago.

She thought for a moment, then said, “When we are young, we think life will be like a su po: one fabric, one weave, one grand design. But in truth, life turns out to be more like the patchwork cloths – bits and pieces, odds and ends – people, places, things we never expected, never wanted, perhaps. There is harmony in this, too, and beauty. I suppose that is why I like the chogak po.

None of the patients could say the experiments didn’t yield some benefits. It was the way the experiments were conducted that grated: with cold, clinical detachment. Masks, gloves, and carbolic acid were the order of the day fora ll staff, and while this may have been prudent it only made isolated people feel even more isolated.

She listened to a life’s story that was, she discovered, richer than it was sad.

There is beauty in the least beautiful of things.

With wonder and a growing absence of fear she realized, I am more than I was an hour ago.

After a while the fear became a constant, cold companion, a simple fact of existence.

He had the look, it seemed to me, of a man who had awakened one day to find himself clinging to the cattle catcher of an express train: under the circumstances, all one could do was to hang on.

The difference between Old Honolulu and New, she would come to decide, was the difference between a beautiful woman who was simply being herself and a beautiful woman calling attention to herself: a little vain perhaps, but you couldn’t say she wasn’t attractive.