Cara Bastone > Quotes

“Grief is a relationship...It's the way we figure out how to keep loving them even though they're gone. And in order to do that we have to keep on going. And going and going.' His hold is tighter and tighter and mine is tighter and tighter and I've slid off the desk and into his lap. 'You are not betraying her by healing,' he whispers directly into my ear. 'You are honoring her. You are learning to love her exactly as she is. As someone who isn't here anymore...That's who she is now. And this journey through grief...It's what we do for the great loves of our lives.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“Just remember. Something good for you, something bad for you, and a change of scenery. That’s the winning formula.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“He treats you well?” “Mom, he walked into hell and dragged me back out.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“Having feelings for someone isn’t about expecting them to be . . . anything, really. It’s about knowing somebody. And liking them for who they are.”
― Cara Bastone, Sweet Talk

“It’s closed-minded to have opinions on something you’ve never experienced,”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“I didn't even know, until this second, that I've been protecting this untenable pain, because it's all I have left of her.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“And this journey through grief... It's what we do for the great loves of our lives.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“It’s a lot of what motherhood is too. Moving from being self-centered to being other-centered.”
― Cara Bastone, Ready or Not

“Lenny, when I look at your face, I feel like I’m finally home after a really long day at work.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“A secret is only a secret if no one knows about it. What’s a secret that everyone knows but no one talks about? It’s shame.”
― Cara Bastone, Ready or Not

“There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re getting used to a new reality. You don’t know how to live right now. It’ll all come back. You’ll take care of yourself again someday.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“Everyone's relationships are weird if you look closely enough at them. I have a theory that if your relationship with someone isn't weird, you don't know them well enough yet.”
― Cara Bastone, Seatmate

“But what am I supposed to do, wear a sign? Not strung out, just having a debilitating mental health crisis while navigating the most excruciating chapter of my life.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“Even when I feel ugly, let the love in. Let someone care for me, tenderly, because they love me, not because I can’t do it myself.”
― Cara Bastone, Ready or Not

“I’m never sleeping when I close my eyes like this with you.” “Then what are you doing?” He pauses and I think he might not answer. But then he says, “I’m committing the moment to memory.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“Don’t worry, Eve, your body is taking care of you. It’s a novel idea. Because if it’s not just me taking care of my body. If listening to my body means that it’s taking care of me too, then…maybe, just maybe…I’m not completely alone.”
― Cara Bastone, Ready or Not

“But the thing about losing the person you love the most on earth is—somehow—you still have to do mundane things like tie your shoes and make enough money to continue to exist in this punishing world.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“Men are absolute buttheads and for the love of God, please don't let them dictate your self-worth.”
― Cara Bastone, Ready or Not

“Eve, for as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to be as close as possible to you.”
― Cara Bastone, Ready or Not

“I think that even in all your worst moments of grief, you've wished for companionship. I think you're always, secretly, hoping for happy endings, even when they don't seem possible. You say compulsive but I think they're actually kind of just... tenacious. Like daisies popping up out of the snow. Grief has been sort of, I don't know, it sounds sappy, but like winter for you. And I think that the part of you that can't help but manufacture happiness, because that's who you are, it's been sending up these little flowers to pop up and keep you company.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“He blinks down at me, a slow expression, filled with a depth that only decades of knowing someone can give you. This here is a man who knows me. And I feel known.”
― Cara Bastone, Ready or Not

“Part of taking care of the people you love is taking care of yourself, right?”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“...apologizing once, sincerely, shows that you mean it. Apologizing over and over just makes your feelings the other person's problem.”
― Cara Bastone, Love at First Psych

“Consider it like you just had a heart transplant. When Lou died, your entire heart went with her. But you have to live, right? So now you’ve got this new heart. And you’re getting used to it. No one would expect you to run up a hill right after a heart transplant. Go slow. Go easy on yourself.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“So I took it second by second. Sometime soon you'll be getting from minute to minute and then day by day. And so on. But.. the point isn't trying to get where you're not. The point is just.. enduring.

What an awful word. Like a curse. Next time I want to say fuck you to somebody I'll just should endure it instead.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine

“It hurts to realize that the world is so much bigger and more complicated than you thought it was. It’ll always hurt.”
― Cara Bastone, Ready or Not

“Most people are self-centered. And I’m not talking about selfishness. I mean it literally. Their center is their own self. Like yours was in your first trimester. They understand the world only through their own experiences. Whatever happens around them, they ask, What does that mean for me? But then there are a select few who are other-centered. And when things happen around them, they ask themselves, What does this mean for everybody? And that sounds like Shep. It doesn’t surprise me that you’ve come to have a crush on someone who considers you.”
― Cara Bastone, Ready or Not

“Some people choose one thing and it becomes their thing and they stick with it no matter what. And there's merit in that. But I think there's also merit in searching for a good fit, too. It's a skill to try and try and try. It takes work and patience and bravery. It's definitely not something to make fun of. It's admirable.”
― Cara Bastone, Call Me Maybe

“treat everyone like they’re somebody’s favorite person on earth?”
― Cara Bastone, Ready or Not

“Well, I can’t promise the sunshine. But I can do everything else.”
― Cara Bastone, Promise Me Sunshine