Ann Brashares, Sisterhood Everlasting
27 quotes
"She didn't open the envelope until she'd gotten to the bus station and needed to pay for her ticket. He hadn't given her the thousand dollars she'd asked for-he'd given her ten thousand."
"It was like a dream you might have after death in which lost people came back to life, your friends loved you again no matter what you had done, and your failures were unaccountably forgiven."
"You don't have time, Len. That is the most bitter and the most beautiful piece of advice I can offer. If you don't have what you want now, you don't have what you want."
"Lena realized that a fundamental layer of their happiness depended on the four of them being close to one another. Their lives were independent and full. Their friendship was only one aspect of their lives, but it seemed to give meaning to all the others."
"Together or apart, no matter how far apart, we live in one another. We go on together."
"What you leave behind is the people you loved. You leave yourself in them."
"Tibby, who was not fond of change, had once told Bridget that the present, no matter what it brought, couldn't change the past. The past was set and sealed."
"Her vision of the world under the water represented a beautiful stillness, a version of heaven. It was the lost city of Lena, her alternate universe, the life she yearned for but didn't get to have."
"Bridget's anger evaporated and the sadness came back. The anger was easier. She owned and controlled it, whereas the sadness owned her."
"She knew that when she got old it would be more fun to look back on a life of romance and adventure than a life of quiet habits. But looking back was easy. It was the doing that was painful. There were plenty of things she would like to look back on but wasn't willing to risk ..."
"Grief was like a newborn, and the first three months were hard as hell, but by six months you'd recognized defeat, shifted your life around, and made room for it."
"Lena wished that love were something you could flip on and off. You could turn it on when you felt good about yourself and worthy of it and generous enough to return it. You could flip it off when you needed to hide or self-destruct ad had nothing at all to give."
"she looked up at the stars and gave Tibby thanks. She didn't have to throw her thoughts far to know they reached her."
"She'd cried over a broken heart before. She knew what that felt like, and it didn't feel like this. Her heart felt not so much broken as just ... empty. It felt like she was an outline empty in the middle. The outline cried senselessly for the absent middle. The past cried for the present that was nothing."
"This is the most beautiful piece of advice I can offer. I you don't have what you want now, you don't have what you want."
"A part of her wanted to tell him she still loved him, and that even though this love was hopeless and long over, it still consumed her year after year. It was a tangled hairball of feelings and she couldn't pull forth any one strand."
"Her body was a prison, her mind was a prison. Her memories were a prison. The people she loved. She couldn't get away from the hurt of them. She could leave Eric, walk out of her apartment, walk forever if she liked, but she couldn't escape what really hurt. Tonight even the sky felt like a prison."
"There were those emotions down there, and though she couldn't quite feel them, they were strong and she feared them. It was like watching a thunderhead from high up in a plane, and though you weren't under it, you knew how it would feel if you were. You knew you'd have to land eventually."
"I picture you four girls back when you were small. I hardly knew where you ended and the other ones started."
"She hadn't chosen the brave life. She'd chosen the small, fearful one."
"Not even you can reach me here, Carmen thought."
"But I know this. We're ready to move forward again in our way. Together or apart, no matter how far apart, we live in one another. We go on together."
"How terrible would it be to just wait there pathetically alone for him never to show up?"Eudoxia's expression grew more serious. "That's what you're doing anyway, my dear."
"Bridget cried for the leavers and the left. For the people, like herself, grimly forsaking what few precious gifts they would ever get. She cried for Bailey, for Tibby, for the resolute clump of cells making headway in her uterus, and for Marly, her poor, sad mother, who'd missed everything."
"Lena felt like a child. Worse than a child and less valuable. She felt like a mouse. No, smaller than a mouse and less alive. Her life seemed so small and crumpled you could shoot it through a straw like a spitball."