52 Quotes by Monica Hesse

My heart will still ache sometimes. Maybe more often than not. I think it’s possible to be healed without feeling whole.

And you don’t have to cry about that boy. Boys are silly. The first thing you need is a best friend.

I found a girl who wasn’t the girl I was looking for. I let go of a friend I’ll still miss every day. I’ll go back to work. I’ll get better. I’ll get better slowly. I’ll find all the secret, hidden things.

The trouble with being the type of person who would do anything for love was that you would do anything for love.

Isn’t love the opposite of rational?

Can I understand? Was leaving enough? Was deserting enough? What would I consider enough? Would I have asked him to shoot his superior officers before he deserted? Go into hiding rather than enlist at all? Try to spy for the Allies? What’s the minimum expectation I have for human decency in a war the was entirely inhumane?

Maybe we can’t barter our feelings away, trading good deeds for bad ones and expecting to become whole.

But I suppose love doesn’t stop, even in wars. There’s only so much time a day that you can spend being terrified of something before your instinct to feel natural human emotions would kick in.

Here is the thing about my grief: It’s like a very messy room in a house where the electricity has gone out.