Kristin Hannah Quotes

If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: in love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.

As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beating of my heart. I cannot now imagine a life without her.

A daughter without her mother is a woman broken. It is a loss that turns to arthritis and settles deep into her bones.

But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.

Men tell stories. Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.

Wounds heal. Love lasts. We remain.

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.

I always thought it was what I wanted: to be loved and admired. Now I think perhaps I'd like to be known.

Some stories don’t have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories.

Love. It was the beginning and end of everything, the foundation and the ceiling and the air in between.

I know that grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us.

That was what a best friend did: hold up a mirror and show you your heart.

Perhaps that’s why I find myself looking backward. The past has a clarity I can no longer see in the present.

Books are the mile markers of my life. Some people have family photos or home movies to record their past. I’ve got books. Characters. For as long as I can remember, books have been my safe place.

I am a mother and mothers don’t have the luxury of falling apart in front of their children, even when they are afraid, even when their children are adults.

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.

Today’s young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention.

It is easy to disappear when no one is looking at you.

A warrior believes in an end she can’t see and fights for it. A warrior never gives up. A warrior fights for those weaker than herself. It sounds like motherhood to me.

Maybe time didn't heal wounds exactly, but it gave you a kind of armor, or a new perspective. A way to remember with a smile instead of a sob.

Sometimes being a good friend means saying nothing.

One thing I can tell you for sure is this: we only regret what we don't do in life.

Tante Isabelle says it’s better to be bold than meek. She says if you jump off a cliff at least you’ll fly before you fall.

And before you barrel through some idiotic Cosmo girl list of how-well-do-you-know-your-man questions, let me say that I don't know squat about him except that he kisses like a god and screws like a devil.

But when he looked at her—and she looked at him—they both knew that there was something worse than kissing the wrong person. It was wanting to.

You are my sunlight in the dark and the ground beneath my feet.

Courage is fear you ignore.

In love we find out who we want to be, in war we find out who we are.

It wasn’t the fear that mattered in life. It was the choices made when you were afraid. You were brave because of your fear, not in spite of it.

It is not biology that determines fatherhood. It is love.

You’re not alone, and you’re not the one in charge,” Mother said gently. “Ask for help when you need it, and give help when you can. I think that is how we serve God—and each other and ourselves—in times as dark as these.

She wanted to bottle how safe she felt in this moment, so she could drink of it later when loneliness and fear left her parched.

If you’re going through hell, keep going.

A thing can be true and not the truth,

Love is what remains when everything else is gone.

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.

I belong to a generation that didn't expect to be protected from every danger. We knew the risks and took them anyway.

A girl was like a kite; without her mother's strong, steady hold on the string, she might just float away, be lost somewhere among the clouds.

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.

You know what they say about finding a man in Alaska—the odds are good, but the goods are odd.

Thank God for girlfriends. In this crazy, chaotic, divided world that was run by men, you could count on the women.

Love and fear. The most destructive forces on earth. Fear had turned her inside out, love had made her stupid.

Thoughts - even fears - were airy things, formless until you made them solid with your voice and once given that weight, they could crush you.

The women had a story to tell, even if the world wasn't quite yet ready to hear it, and their story began with three simple words. We were there.

We women make choices for others, not for ourselves, and when we are mothers, we...bear what we must for our children. You will protect them. It will hurt you; it will hurt them. Your job is to hide that your heart is breaking and do what they need you to do.

Books had always been her solace; novels gave her the space to be bold, brave, beautiful, if only in her own imagination.

... home was not just a cabin in a deep woods that overlooked a placid cove. Home was a state of mind, the peace that came from being who you were and living an honest life.

Finding your passion isn't just about careers and money. It's about finding your authentic self. The one you've buried beneath other people's needs.

In the sea of grief, there were islands of grace, moments in time when one could remember what was left rather than all that had been lost.

She was so tired of being strong.

A girl’s love for her father. Immutable. Unbearable but unbreakable.

She has a steel exterior, but it protects a candyfloss heart.

Don't worry about dying, Elsa. Worry about not living. Be brave." - Grandpa Wolcott

It isn’t about being at the same school or the same town or even the same room. It’s about being together. Love is a choice you make.

Of course you can fall in love. You just have to let yourself. They don't call it falling for nothing. -Kate

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.

What good did it do to light the world on fire if she had to watch the glow alone?

How will I stop loving him, Mama? Will I .... forget ? Mama sighed. Ah. That. Love doesn't fade or die, baby girl. People tell you it does, but it doesn't. If you love him now, you'll love him in ten years and in forty. Differently, maybe , a faded version, but he's part of you now. And you are part of him.

When you get . . . to the end, you see that love and family are all there is. Nothing else matters.

I guess no one stays friends for more than thirty years without broken hearts along the way.

know now what matters, and it is not what I have lost. It is my memories. Wounds heal. Love lasts.

Do you love him?" How would I know?" You'd know.

Women can be heroes.

If there’s one thing I never do, it’s stop.

And maybe that was how it was supposed to be...Joy and sadness were part of the package; the trick, perhaps,was to let yourself feel all of it, but to hold on to the joy just a little more tightly...

At one point, she'd wanted to hurl the whole breakfast at the wall. And then she'd remember why it was that men had temper tantrums and women didn't: cleanup.

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.

With all the risks they were taking, love was probably the most dangerous choice of all.

Alaska isn't about who you were when you headed this way. It's about who you become.

You are of me, Loreda, in a way that can never be broken. You taught me love. You, first in the whole world, and my love for you will outlive me.

To lose love is a terrible thing. But to turn away from it is unbearable. Will you spend the rest of your life replaying it in your head? Wondering if you walked away too soon or too easily? Or if you'll ever love anyone that deeply again?

It’s scary that people can just stop loving you, you know?

Ask for help when you need it, and give help when you can.

How fragile life was, how fragile they were. Love. It was the beginning and end of everything, the foundation and the ceiling and the air in between. It didn’t matter that she was broken and ugly and sick. He loved her and she loved him, All her life she had waited -longed for - people to love her, but now she saw what she really mattered. She had known love, been blessed by it.

I am in awe of her fire. Even if I'm the one she sets on fire.

To those who are here, those who are gone, and those who are lost.

You don’t stop loving a person when they’re hurt. You get stronger so they can lean on you.

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.

Don’t think about who they are. Think about who you are and what sacrifices you can live with and what will break you.

The at-home mother's life: it was a race with no finish line.

You are of me, Loreda, in a way that can never be broken. Not by words or anger or actions or time. I love you. I will always love you.

I say folks who hang on to the past miss their chance for a future.

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.

I know about forgiving people and loving them anyway, even after they hurt you.

I think you stand by the people you love.

Promises were a lot like impressions. The second one didn't count for much.

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.

Apparently you couldn’t stop loving some people, or needing their love, even when you knew better.

Elsa knew that a library card—a thing they’d taken for granted all of their lives—meant there was still a future.

Words were creators of worlds; you had to be careful with them.

You will always miss her. There will be days - even years from now - when the missing will be so sharp it will take your breath away. But there will be good days, too, months and years of them. In one way or another you'll be searching for her all your life.

How did you tell a man that you'd grown up, that you'd learned true love wasn't a night of passionate sex under a sky lit up by fireworks, but an ordinary Sunday morning when your husband brought you a glass of water, two aspirins, and a heating pad for your cramps?

If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are. Today’s young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention.

She still felt shell-shocked by all of it, numb. Beneath the numbness, though, was a raw and terrible anger that was unlike anything she'd felt before. She had so little experience with genuine anger that it scared her. She actually worried that if she started screaming, she'd never stop.

They would always be a family, but if she'd learned anything in the past few weeks it was that a family wasn't a static thing. There were always changes going on. Like with continents, sometimes the changes were invisible and underground, and sometimes they were explosive and deadly. The trick was to keep your balance. You couldn't control the direction of your family any more than you could stop the continental shelf from breaking apart. All you could do was hold on for the ride.

As we know, there are lessons to be learned from history. Hope to be derived from hardships faced before. We've gone through bad times before and survived, even thrived. History has shown us the strength and durability of the human spirit, In the end, it is our idealism and our courage and our commitment to one another--what we have in common--that will save us.

It is a kiss that, once begun, never really ends. Interrupted, yes. Paused, certainly. But from that very moment onward, Vera sees the whole of her life as only a breath away from kissing him again. On that night in the park, they begin the delicate task of binding their souls together, creating a whole comprising their separate halves.

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.

We were the last believers, my generation. We trusted what our parents taught us about right and wrong, good and evil, the American myth of equality and justice and honor. I wonder if any generation will ever believe again. People will say it was the war that shattered our lives and laid bare the beautiful lie we’d been taught. And they’d be right. And wrong. There was so much more. It’s hard to see clearly when the world is angry and divided and you’re being lied to.

Leni had never known anyone who had died before. She had seen death on television and read about it in her beloved books, but now she saw the truth of it. In literature, death was many things - a message, catharsis, retribution. There were deaths that came from a beating heart that stopped and deaths of another kind, a choice made, like Frodo going to the Grey Havens. Death made you cry, filled you with sadness, but in the best of her books, there was peace, too, satisfaction, a sense of the story ending as it should. In real life, she saw, it wasn't like that. It was sadness opening up inside of you, changing how you saw the world.