Kristin Hannah Quotes

64 Sourced Quotes

This fear was unbearable. It unwrapped who she was, as neatly as he'd unwound her bandage, leaving too much pain and ugliness exposed. Nerve endings; he'd said they were the problem [causing phantom pain in the amputated limb]." Things that cut off, that ended abruptly or died—like parents and marriages—kept hurting forever.

Kristin Hannah
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.

Kristin Hannah
Marriages go through hard times. Sometimes you have to get in there and fight for your love. That's the only way for it to get better.

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

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.

Kristin Hannah
You look great," he said. It made her smile, even if it was a lie. "I'm as big as a house." He laughed. "I like houses. In fact, I'm thinking about architecture as a career.

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

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

Kristin Hannah
Both had learned that everything could change in an instant, and that the heartfelt vows of people in love were fragile words that, once shattered, could cut so deeply you'd bleed forever.

Kristin Hannah
Before this trip and all that she'd learned about the three of them, she would have gotten angry or changed the subject. Anything to obscure the pain she felt. Now she knew better. You carried your pain with you in life. There was no outrunning it.

Kristin Hannah
I didn't know how...deep love ran, how it was in your blood, not your heart, and how that same blood pumped through your veins your whole life.

Kristin Hannah
Honestly, I believe that the mother-daughter relationship is magical, complex, potentially dangerous, profoundly powerful, and deeply transformative. To put it simply, all of us have this relationship, and in a very real way, "none of us comes out alive." We are all formed first as daughters and then tested as mothers. There's nothing like motherhood to make us reassess how we were as daughters.

Kristin Hannah
Some stories don't have happy endings. Even love stories. Maybe especially love stories.

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

Kristin Hannah
Jude remembered this pain. Every woman had felt some version of it: the end of first love. It was when you learned, for good and always, that love could be impermanent.

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

Kristin Hannah
It occurred to her suddenly, sharply, that she wanted to be in love... She wanted not to feel so damned alone in the world.

Kristin Hannah
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.

Kristin Hannah
Nina knew the power of black and white images. Sometimes a thing was its truest self when the colors were stripped away.

Kristin Hannah
If she wasn't careful, she'd slide without a ripple into the gently flowing stream of her old life, pulled back under the current without a wimper of protest. Another housewife lost in the flow.

Kristin Hannah
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...

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

Kristin Hannah
You couldn't give up you for them. But what if you wanted them more than you wanted a singular powerful you?

Kristin Hannah
She'd been criticized for holding the reins of parenthood too tightly, of controlling her children too completely, but she didn't know how to let go. From the moment she'd first decided to become a mother, it had been an epic battle.

Kristin Hannah
Then he left her there, standing alone, surrounded by word ghosts; things she could have said.

Kristin Hannah
Their friendship was more important than any relationship. Guys would come and go; girlfriends were forever.

Kristin Hannah
I might screw up, I might embarrass you, I might yell at you, but I will never, ever stop loving you. You're my first born. The first time I held you... I fell in love so hard it cracked my bones.

Kristin Hannah
No mother. Two small words, and yet within them lay a bottomless well of pain and loss, a ceaseless mourning for touches that were never received and words of wisdom that were never spoken. No single word was big enough to adequately describe the loss of your mother.

Kristin Hannah
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.

Kristin Hannah
Lately he'd been seen going out less and less, becoming that strangest of animals in a small town: a loner.

Kristin Hannah