The minute he saw her, he understood what had been missing from his life. It was hokey, he knew, and sentimental and sappy, but that didn’t make it any less true. What he’d been longing for, without even realizing it, had been that elusive, magical mixture of friendship and passion that he’d only ever found with her.
Up here, in the vastness of Alaska, the words sounded infinitesimal and small. A fist shaken at the gods.
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.
He pulled back and slowly got to his feet. We’ve all been carrying this baggage for too long. Some of us have tried to go on. He looked at her. And some of us have refused to. But all of us are hurting. I’m your father. She’s your mother – whatever she’s done or hasn’t done, or said or hasn’t said – she a part of you and you’re a part of her. Don’t you see that you can’t be whole without her?
Love doesn’t fade or die.
They were standing at the top of a mountain, on a wide patch of flat land. Far below lay a vast swath of farmland, fields of green. Great rectangles of brown, newly tilled earth. “California,” Ant said. Elsa had never seen land so beautiful. So fertile. So green. California. The Golden State.
Time and again, she had returned to God, pleading for help, promising her faith. She wanted to believe that she was neither alone nor in charge, but rather that her life was unfolding according to His plan, even if she couldn’t see it.
The waters of the past were as cold as she’d expected, even in the heat of this gorgeous summer morning.
It’s not forgetting that we need Vianne, it’s remembering.
My grandfather was a Texas Ranger. He used to tell me that courage was a lie. It was just fear that you ignored.
How could you hold on to ideals when you were sick and cold and starving?
Mama was engaged in a continual quest to “find” herself. In the past few years, she’d tried EST and the human potential movement, spiritual training, Unitarianism. Even Buddhism. She’d cycled through them all, cherry-picked pieces and bits. Mostly, Leni thought, Mama had come away with T-shirts and sayings. Things like, What is, is, and what isn’t, isn’t. None of it seemed to amount to much.
The sight of them helping others when they themselves had lost everything made her proud.
Your mama told me that if a girl grows up smelling sea air, she can never really breathe inland.
How can I possibly fold all that longing into something as small as words?
But you want to take him anyway.” “You look at the heartbreak of one boy. I am here because of the heartbreak of my people. You understand?” His face sagged, his mouth curved into a small frown. “Millions of Jews were killed in this war, Madame. Millions.” He let that sink in. “An entire generation is gone. We need to band together now, those few of us who are left; we need to rebuild. One boy with no memory of who he was may seem a small thing to lose, but to us, he is the future.
She worked like a dog to support us, doing whatever she had to do, but each night, at bedtime, she kissed me good night and told me I could be anything in America. It was the dream that had brought her here and she passed it on to me. But, it was a lie. For people like us, anyway. Folks who are from the wrong place, or have the wrong color skin, or speak the wrong language, or pray to the wrong God.
Love is nothing without faith. I lost that faith a long time ago. Of course you did. And you’re right to blame your dad and me for it, but that doesn’t matter anymore-whose fault it is. What matters is you. Can you let yourself jump without a net? Because that’s what love is, what faith is. You’re looking for a a guarantee, and those come with auto parts. Not love.
He started to cry, and she pulled him into her arms. It took perhaps the greatest courage of her life to let go of him.
I finally learned that life is not made up of BIG moments and sudden epiphanies, but rather of tiny bits of time, some so small they pass by unnoticed.