669 Quotes by Kristin Hannah

Let me tell you something else I know. When you hide things away, and keep them secret, they have a... power.

It had been the first kiss for both of them, and to this day, when Dean kissed a woman, he longed for the smell of the sea.

The father who went off to war was not the one who came home.

They’d talked about the past in their bits-and-pieces way. Never all at once, never one big end-up-crying-and-hugging moment, but a constant brushing up of the past, reexamining actions and decisions and beliefs, offering apologies, forgiveness. All of it had brought them closer to who they were, who they’d always been. Mother and daughter. Their essential, immutable bond – fragile enough to snap at a harsh word a long time ago, durable enough to survive death itself. “Mommy! There you are,” MJ.

Of course. But how can I let her believe it’s all right to do nothing in times such as these?

Why was it that pebbles looked like boulders until they were in your rearview mirror?

In the years that she had been tying scraps to the branches, the tree had died and the fruit had turned bitter. The other apple trees were hale and healthy, but this one, the tree of her remembrances, was as black and twisted as the bombed-out town behind it.

That was the sly, ruinous thing about motherhood, the thing that twisted your insides with guilt and made you change your mind and lower your standards: giving in was so damned easy. It.

We have always been the witnesses of each other’s lives. Isn’t that what family is? Even broken and betrayed and bleeding, we are connected.