You have a child, so you know. You are my heart, baby girl. You are everything I did right. And I want you to know I would do it all again, every wonderful terrible second of it. I would do years and years of it again for one minute with you.
It’s scary that people can just stop loving you, you know?
All this time, Dad had taught Leni how dangerous the outside world was. The truth was that the biggest danger of all was in her own home.
Ask for help when you need it, and give help when you can.
Vianne didn’t hesitate. She knew now that no one could be neutral – not anymore – and as afraid as she was of risking Sophie’s life, she was suddenly more afraid of letting her daughter grow up in a world where good people did nothing to stop evil, where a good woman could turn her back on a friend in need. She reached for the toddler, took him in her arms.
Alaska isn’t about who you were when you headed this way. It’s about who you become.
We are all fragile. It’s the thing we learn in war.
Don’t think about who they are. Think about who you are and what sacrifices you can live with and what will break you.
I think you stand by the people you love.
She realized that the landscape of a woman’s soul could change as quickly as a world at war.
She wouldn’t have understood how dark a side love could have, how hiding it was the kindest thing you could do sometimes.
Leni saw suddenly how hope could break you, how it was a shiny lure for the unwary. What happened to you if you hoped too hard for the best and got the worst?
She wanted to say “Don’t leave me”, but she couldn’t do it, not again. She was so tired of begging people to love her.
Memories- even the best of them- faded.
She was so tired of being considered disposable.
In the silence, Leni wondered if one person could ever really save another, or if it was the kind of thing you had to do for yourself.
Beauty was just another way to discount her, to not see her.
I loved you both with all of my damaged heart.
Men tell stories,” I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. “Women get on with it.
He taught her something new about friendship: it picked right back up where you’d left off, as if you hadn’t been apart at all.