Kristin Hannah

To make real friends you have to put yourself out there. Sometimes people will let you down, but you can't let that stop you. If you get hurt, you just pick yourself up, dust off your feelings, and try again.

I am a mother and mothers don__ have the luxury of falling apart in front of their children, even when they are afraid, even when their children are adults.

Some women nodded, others shook their heads. I would have killed myself before I let one of them move into my house. Would you Helen? Would you really?

We are outside again, walking, when he takes a bite and stops dead. "Wow," he says after a minute. Then, "Wow," again.I smile. Everyone remembers their first taste of Paris. This will be his.

I had forgotten how gently time passes in Paris. As lively as the city is, there's a stillness to it, a peace that lures you in. In Paris, with a glass of wine in your hand, you can just be.All along the Seine, street lamps come on, apartment windows turn golden."It's seven," Julien says, and I realize that he has been keeping time all along, waiting. He is so American. No sitting idle, forgetting oneself, not for this young man of mine.

Marah will come looking for me one day, Kate had said, pressing the journal into my hands. Be with her when she reads it. And my boys_ show them these words when they can__ remember me.

I've never begged. not for anything... except my mother's love.And that was a useless waste of time.

It felt as if she were bleeding - but it wasn't blood that leaked out of her, not something that could be easily transfused. Instead she was losing her dreams.

... allow me to be an old man for a moment and to remind a young girl who is used to being impulsive that there can be none of that anymore.

Lulu twirled in front of Jolene, banging into the seat. her eyes sparkled in that I'm-either-going-to-scream-or-fall-asleep-any-second kind of way.

Tragedy was like that, a razor that sliced through time, severing the now from the before, incising the what-might-have-been from reality as cleanly as any surgeon's blade.

She pouted prettily, and he wondered if that was one of the things they taught wealthy young girls at schools like Miss Porter's. If not, it had been passed down from one generation to another as carefully as the secret of fire.

A generous donor (who had no doubt lived a life that imperiled his mortal soul) had granted [the Sisters] more than one hundred waterfront acres.

If I had told him the truth long ago, or had danced and drunk and sung more, maybe he would have seen me instead of a dependable, ordinary mother. He loves a version of me that is incomplete. I always thought it was what I wanted; to be loved and admired. Now i think perhaps I'd like to be known.

Caro: "Bite me."Ruby: "I gave that up in kindergarten.

That was the thing about best friends. Like sisters and mothers, they could piss you off and make you cry and break your heart, but in the end, when the chips were down, they were there, making you laugh even in your darkest hours.

Elizabeth: "Maybe he'll surprise you."Meghann: "Birdie, they all surprise me. Last week, I hugged my date at the door and felt a bra strap.

but that shadow self of hers wasn't so sure. The ugly, toxic thought was smaller than a drop of blood, yet it poisoned the entire stream.