81 Quotes by Marisa de los Santos

When it happens— the great sea change, the alteration of one’s life into something rich and strange— when it singles one out, one is always lucky, lucky automatically. I’m talking about transformation, and the transformation I’m talking about is always a gift. A blessing.

Like love was a habit you couldn't break.

I can't stand lies. Probably no one can. Probably everyone is, to varying degrees, allergic to them, both spiritually and physically. Lies make me feel low and ignoble, and also itchy, like there's sand under my skin. The only thing that feels worse than hearing a lie is telling one.

Inside plum trees stood in a row, flowers lifted their pale throats to the moon and stars, a magnolia held its tight-closed buds like white candles in its green hands.

When he looked up, he said, "Clare told me about Christmas." And I swear the boy's face began to shine. I recognized what I saw there: that a person's name could be infinitely precious, that just saying it could make you feel singled out for glory.

All the books she’d read had taught her nothing about what you do when your mother doesn’t die but turns into someone you don’t know, someone who doesn’t take care of you anymore.

What if grief isn't only missing people and being sad? That's how we usually think about it. But what if it's just -- reckoning with their being gone and with knowing they're never coming back?

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.

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.