Jamie Ford > Quotes

“The hardest choices in life aren't between what's right and what's wrong but between what's right and what's best.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“I had my chance.' He said it, retiring from a lifetime of wanting. 'I had my chance, and sometimes in life, there are no second chances. You look at what you have, not what you miss, and you move forward.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“The library is like a candy store where everything is free.”
― Jamie Ford, Songs of Willow Frost

“He'd do what he always did, find the sweet among the bitter.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“I try not to live in the past...but...sometimes the past lives in me”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“Some things just can't be put back together. Some things can never be fixed. Two broken pieces can't make a lot of anything anymore. But at least he had the broken pieces.”
― Jamie Ford

“Henry was learning that time apart has a way of creating distance- more than mountains and time zone separating them. Real distance, the kind that makes you ache and stop wondering. Longing so bad that it begins to hurt to care so much.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“Hope can get you through anything.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“He'd learned long ago: perfection isn't what families are all about.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“But choosing to lovingly care for her was like steering a plane into a mountain as gently as possible. The crash is imminent; it's how you spend your time on the way down that counts.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“I think I get it now. It doesn't matter how nice home is--it just matters that it feels like home.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“It reminded him that time was short, but that beautiful endings could still be found at the end of cold, dreary days.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“Like so many things Henry had wanted in life -- like his father, his marriage, his life -- it had arrived a little damaged. Imperfect. But he didn't care, this was all he'd wanted. Something to hope for, and he'd found it. It didn't matter what condition it was in.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“After a lifetime of nods, frowns and stoic smiles, they were both fluent in emotional shorthand.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“Henry, this isn't about us. I mean it is, but they don't define you by the button you wear. They define you by what you do, by what your actions say about you. And coming here, despite your parents, says a lot to them- and me. And they're Americans first. They don't see you as the enemy. They see you as a person.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“There are people in our lives whom we love, and lose, and unfailingly long for. They orbit our hearts like Halley’s Comet, crossing into our universe only once, or if we are lucky, twice in a lifetime.”
― Jamie Ford

“There are people in our lives whom we love, and lose, and forever long for. They orbit our hearts like Halley's Comet, crossing into our universe only once, or if we're lucky, twice in a lifetime. And when they do, they affect our gravity.”
― Jamie Ford, Love and Other Consolation Prizes

“Loyalty. We're still loyal to the United States of America. Why? Because we too are Americans. We don't agree, but we will show our loyalty by our obedience.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“A young nurse, someone new whom he didn't recognise, came up to Henry and patted him on the arm. "Are you a friend or a family member?" She whispered the question in his ear, trying not to disturb Sheldon.

The question hung there like a beautiful chord, ringing in the air. Henry was Chinese, Sheldon obviously wasn't. They looked nothing alike. Nothing at all. "I'm distant family," Henry said.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“We all have things we don’t talk about, Ernest thought. Even though, more often than not, those are the things that make us who we are.”
― Jamie Ford, Love and Other Consolation Prizes

“The waitress brought a fresh pot of tea, and Marty refilled his father’s cup and poured a cup for Samantha. Henry in turn filled Marty’s. It was a tradition Henry cherished—never filling your own cup, always filling that of someone else, who would return the favor.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“So Henry found himself stepping off the bus three stops early and wandering over to the Panama Hotel, a place between worlds when he was a child, a place between times now that he was a grown man.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“Sometimes you need to feel the sadness, you need to feel everything to finally leave it behind, to have peace. Happiness. Sadness. Like all things, they both come to an end.”
― Jamie Ford, Love and Other Consolation Prizes

“Good Morning, Henry. How's it feel to be a prisoner for a day?' Henry looked at Keiko. 'Best day of my life.' Keiko found her smile all over again.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“I try not to live in the past, he thought, but who knows, sometimes the past lives in me.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“I am what you made me, Father.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“The most important lesson I can teach you is to never settle for what others want you to be. Find a way to be the person you need to be to truly be happy. Don't give in to convention. Don't make the same mistake I did. Marriage to the wrong person is like stepping in quicksand, you lose yourself, bit by bit, slowly suffocating until your disappear completely.”
― Jamie Ford, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy

“Henry looked up and down the empty avenue—no cars or trucks anywhere. No bicycles. No paperboys. No fruit sellers or fish buyers. No flower carts or noodle stands. The streets were vacant, empty—the way he felt inside. There was no one left.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“The more Henry though about the shabby old knickknacks, the forgotten treasures, the more he wondered if his own broken heart might be found in there, hidden among the unclaimed possessions of another time. Boarded up in the basement of a condemned hotel. Lost, but never forgotten.”
― Jamie Ford, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

“Parents always have a story that their children don’t really know,”
― Jamie Ford, Love and Other Consolation Prizes