Kristin Hannah The Women Quotes

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.

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.

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

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.

Women can be heroes.

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.

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

life—and the law—is hard on women. Sometimes doing the right thing is no help at all.

Maybe happy now, happy for a moment, is all we really get. Happy forever seems a shitload to ask in a world on fire.

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

there was never enough time with the people who mattered.

Why was it so easy for men in the world to do as they wanted and so difficult for women?

We laugh so we don't cry.

That was the starting and ending point in life: love. The journey was everything in between.

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.

The old white men who run this country are scared. And people do stupid, ugly things when they’re scared.” She leaned close. “But they’re counting on their power and our fear.

Men tell stories,” I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. “Women get on with it.

From here, the war was almost beautiful. Maybe that was a fundamental truth: War looked one way for those who saw it from a safe distance. Close up, the view was different

The world changes for men, Frances. For women, it stays pretty much the same.

Men tell stories,” I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. “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.

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.

Love. A thing to be shouted from the rooftops, celebrated, not cultivated in secret and clipped into shape in the dark.

regrets were a waste of time. If only was the bend in a troubling road. She learned day by day how to navigate through life, keep going, keep moving forward.

He was giving her that look—she knew it now—sadness wrapped in compassion, wrapped in understanding

Welcome to the Thirty-Sixth Evac Hospital, McGrath. Be the best version of yourself.

Love mattered in this ruined world, but so did honor. What was one without the other?

Apparently, when Walter Cronkite reported on the Tet carnage, he’d said—on air—“What the hell is going on? I thought we were winning the war.

Maybe that was why people built walls: to look away, to ignore anything they didn’t want to see.

Best friends forever. They'd believed it would last, that vow, that someday they'd be old women, sitting in their rocking chairs on a creaking deck, talking about the times of their lives, and laughing...

You deserve to be loved, Frankie. In that forever kind of way. Don’t forget that.

She wouldn’t be surprised if those death stares would be a part of them forever now. Men staring into a world they no longer were a part of, no longer comprehended, a world where the ground beneath your feet exploded. Another kind of casualty.

She could reach into a man’s chest and hold his heart in her hands, but she had forgotten how to make small talk.

This war has … stretched the generation gap so wide that it threatens to pull the country apart.

Having discovered her own failings, she was less inclined to judge others.

Most of us have made too many decisions based on other people. We need to do what we need to do. But we’ve been silenced for too long, invisible for too many years.

Some things don’t bear the weight of words. That’s the problem with your generation, you all want to talk, talk, talk. What is the point?

At twenty-five, Frankie moved with the kind of caution that came with age; she was constantly on guard, aware that something bad could happen at any moment. She trusted neither the ground beneath her feet nor the sky above her head. Since coming home from war, she had learned how fragile she was, how easily upended her emotions could be.

For a moment she held back, but the effort it took felt toxic, as if the stories she wanted to share might turn to poison inside of her.

That was what family meant. Sometimes hurts didn’t quite heal. That was life.

Life was like that, she guessed; it was all wrong until suddenly it was right, and you didn’t really know how to react in either instance.

Maybe that was a fundamental truth: War looked one way for those who saw it from a safe distance. Close up, the view was different.

There’s no going back, Frankie. You have to find a way to go forward, become the new you.

The question was, how? How did you get through grief, how did you want to live again when you couldn’t imagine what that life could be, how you could be happy again?

Nurses back in the world are second-class citizens. And, big surprise—they’re mostly women. Men keep us in boxes, make us wear starched virgin white, and tell us that docs are gods. And the worst part is, we believe them.

They are heroes, our soldiers, the men and women who go into harm's way to protect us, our way of life. It doesn't matter what you think of the war, your have to be grateful to the warriors, of whom we ask so much. To whom we sometimes give too little.

She was so unlike the other women he'd slept with. Course, they were whores, mostly...

a world where Vietnam veterans were supposed to be invisible, the women most of all.

There are men going home to their families because of us. That’s about all we can hope for.” He moved closer. “Come on, I’ll buy you a drink.” “I don’t really drink.

Yeah. You gotta be careful. Over here, the men lie and they die.

What is the most important rule in ’Nam, Frank?” “Don’t drink the water?” “That’s number one. Number two: never volunteer.

Fighting for who you were at twenty-one is a losing game. If that’s what you’ve been trying for, no wonder you’re struggling. The naive, idealistic girl who volunteered for war is gone.

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.

That was one thing this war had taught her, there was never enough time with the people who mattered.

You’ve got heart, I can tell. Skills, I can teach.

We will save plenty of lives today, Frank. But not all of them. Never all of them

Frankie had never known before that words could heal, at least be the beginning of healing.

Teacher. Nurse. Secretary. These were acceptable futures for a girl like her.

Women wrote their names on scraps of paper or cloth and shoved them through cracks in the carriage walls, hoping against hope to be remembered.

Worst of all, his lies had exposed an immorality in her that she could have sworn hadn’t existed before him. She’d begun by believing she was stupid and learned slowly that she was just human.

If Frankie hadn’t been so sick of crying, so emptied out, she would have cried. Thank God for girlfriends. In this crazy, chaotic, divided world that was run by men, you could count on the women.

Think about the women who fought for the vote. They had to be scared, too, but they marched for change, even if it meant going to jail. And now we can vote. Sometimes the end is worth any sacrifice.

So. I am not coming home next month. I have signed up for another one-year tour of duty. I simply can’t leave my post when the men need me. We don’t have enough experienced staff here. There. I can hear you screaming. If you knew me now, you’d understand. I am a combat nurse.

Deep down, she was still the good Catholic girl she’d been in her youth. She believed in good and evil, right and wrong, the dream of America. Who would she be if she chose to look away from the wrongness of this war?

It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. “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.

But time—and friendship—had done exactly as promised: pain and grief had grown soft in her hands, almost pliable. She found she could form them into something kinder if she was deliberate in thought and action, if she lived a careful, cautious life, if she stayed away from anything that reminded her of the war, of loss, of death.

Frankie didn’t know what to say about that or, really, what to think about it. The world of hippies and protesters felt far, far away. It had nothing to do with the guys dying over here. Except that it did. The protests made them feel that their sacrifices meant nothing or, worse, that they were doing something wrong. “The world is upside down.

She closed her eyes, thought of the best moments of her life—with her dad calling her Peanut and lifting her into the air, her mother holding her tightly while she cried, and Finley teaching her to surf, sharing his secrets, holding her hand. Jamie, teaching her to believe in herself, to try. No fear, McGrath. And Barb and Ethel, always there for her.

Why had it never occurred to Frankie that a girl, a woman, could have a place on her father’s office wall for doing something heroic or important, that a woman could invent something or discover something or be a nurse on the battlefield, could literally save lives?

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small gray stone that read: YOU FIGHT MCGRATH. The stone she’d been given by the young Vietnamese boy in the orphanage, and which she’d slipped into Jamie’s duffel bag. “It was a hellhole over there and worse when we got home,” he said quietly, “but you got me through it, McGrath. Remembering you got me through.

Dear God,” Frankie said under her breath. How could that be? With care, she picked up the infant, who couldn’t be much older than three months. “Hey, little one,” Frankie said, her voice breaking. Thin white ribs shone through the gaping wounds and burns on her chest.

Men tell stories", I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. "Women get on with it.

It’s never good to sit around and wait for someone or something to change your life. That’s why women like Gloria Steinem are burning their bras and marching on Washington.

War was full of goodbyes, and most of them never really happened; you were always too early or too late.

Life over here is short and regret lasts forever. Maybe happy is now, happy for a moment, is all we really get. Happy forever seems like a shitload to ask in a world on fire.

You’ll always have the piece of him that was yours and your time together.

A silence fell between them; in it lay the ugly truth that none of them wanted to face. The village was in South Vietnam. And only the Americans had bombs.

Tears blurred her vision. “I don’t know about a hero, Dad, but I served my country. Yeah.

She’d made some of the most momentous choices in her life before she had any idea of consequences. Some had been thrust on her, some had been expected, some had been impetuous.

Just hold his hand. Sometimes that's all we can do

Love had somehow given her latitude to recast her terrible choice in a prettier light.

We're all fragile, Isabelle. It's the thing that we learn in war

We must never forget these remarkable women and the daring, dangerous choices they made to save others

How did you get through grief, how did you want to live again when you couldn't imagine what that life could be, how you could be happy again? It was a question that hadn't occurred to her before.

According to the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation statement, approximately 10,000 American military women were stationed in Vietnam during the war. Most were nurses in the Army, Air Force, and Navy, but women also served as physicians and medical personnel, and in air traffic control and military intelligence. Civilian women also served in Vietnam as news correspondents and workers for the Red Cross, Donut Dollies, the USO, Special Services, the American Friends Service Committee, Catholic Relief Services, and other humanitarian organizations.

In a country where youth is adored, we lost ours before we were out of our twenties. We learned to accept death there, and it erased our sense of immortality. We met our human frailties, the dark side of ourselves, face-to-face … The war destroyed our faith, betrayed our trust, and dropped us outside the mainstream of our society. We still don’t fully belong. I wonder if we ever will. —WINNIE SMITH AMERICAN DAUGHTER GONE

Why have I never heard anything about all this—and not just from you? Sophie never said a word. Hell, I didn’t even know that people escaped over the mountains or that there was a concentration camp just for women who resisted the Nazis.” “Men tell stories,” I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. “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. Your sister was as desperate to forget it as I was. Maybe that was another mistake I made—letting her forget. Maybe we should have talked about it.

Men tell stories", I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. 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.

Unaware of Nina, the woman paused at the riverbank and looked out over the scar on the land where the water should run. Her expression sharpened, turned desperate as she reached down to touch the child in her arms. It was a look Nina had seen in woman all over the world, especially in times of war and destruction. A bone-deep fear for her child’s future…Someday her portraits would show the world how strong and powerful women could be, as well as the personal cost of that strength… She heard Danny come up beside her. “Hey, you.” She leaned against him, feeling food about her shots. “I just love how they are with their kids, even when the odds are impossible. The only time I cry is when I see their faces with their babies. Why is that, with all we’ve seen?” “So it’s mothers you follow. I thought it was warriors.

Men tell stories,” I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. “Women get on with it. For us

Senior Prom 1966 was scrawled on the white border of the print. On the back it read Come home, Beez. We love you.

Dear Barb, I only have time for a postcard. Sex was great. I was bold. And you were right. He knew what he was doing. F

Even worse than that, in the late seventies she’d sat here in her living room and watched a fellow Vietnam vet claim on television that Agent Orange had given him—and thousands like him—cancer. I died in Vietnam; I just didn’t know it, he’d said. Not long after that, the world had learned that the herbicide also caused miscarriages and birth defects. Most likely it had caused Frankie’s miscarriage.

Best friends forever. They'd believed it would last, that vow, that someday they'd be old women, sitting in their rocking chairs on a creaking desk, talking about the times of their lives, and laughing...

It’s called post-traumatic stress disorder. It’s a bit controversial, they haven’t added it to the APA manual yet, but we’re seeing similar symptoms in your fellow vets. What you’re experiencing is a familiar response to trauma.” “I didn’t see combat.” “Frankie, you were a surgical nurse in the Central Highlands.” She nodded. “And you think you didn’t see combat?” “My … Rye … was a POW. Tortured. Kept in the dark for years. He’s fine.” Henry leaned forward. “War trauma isn’t a competitive sport. Nor is it one-size-fits-all. The POWs are a particular group, as well. They came home to a different world than you did. They were treated like the World

We all went through it. Nurses back in the world are second-class citizens. And, big surprise—they’re mostly women. Men keep us in boxes, make us wear starched virgin white, and tell us that docs are gods. And the worst part is, we believe them.

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.

So, now I know there’s a story. Spill the beans, girl.” Frankie sighed. “Fin used to bring his Naval Academy friends home in the summer. They seemed like gods to me.” She smiled, a little one, and thought maybe it was too sad to be real. “Rye Walsh was his best friend. The CO in the sunglasses last night? I had a huge crush on him.” “The guy who looks like Paul Newman? Wow. So, grab his hand and show him—” “He’s engaged.” “Shit. Not again.” Barb took a drink. “And you’re a damn good girl.” “When I danced with Jamie, I felt safe. Loved, I guess. It was like being home,

It is as heroic as he makes it sound. “Why have I never heard anything about all this—and not just from you? Sophie never said a word. Hell, I didn’t even know that people escaped over the mountains or that there was a concentration camp just for women who resisted the Nazis.” “Men tell stories,” I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. “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. Your sister was as desperate to forget it as I was. Maybe that was another mistake I made—letting her forget. Maybe we should have talked about it.

Men tell stories,” I say. It is the truest, simplest answer to his question. “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. Your sister was as desperate to forget it as I was. Maybe that was another mistake I made—letting her forget. Maybe we should have talked about it.