Cynthia Gunderson > Quotes

“When I first started improving at pickleball, I was shocked at the reaction from the male players around me. Not all of them, but enough that I seriously questioned whether I would continue playing. Either they continued to treat me like I wasn't capable of handling my own side or they closed off when I beat them. Those friendships, and even some potential romantic relationships, I thought I had? Gone. As soon as they weren't better than I was”
― Cynthia Gunderson, The Hot Shot

“The urge to say something inspiring or somehow reassure him that it will be okay hits, but I swallow it. I hate when people do that. Sure, people are resilient and time does dull old wounds, but telling someone to look at the bright side is almost never the right answer in my experience. Even though I tend to be a "bright side" person.”
― Cynthia Gunderson, The Hot Shot

“Driving two and a half hours up from the Springs so his son didn't have to change schools. Saving Mason on the court. Sorting clothes in the back room. Showing up at the firehouse on his day off because StriveLab needed his face and the station needed a drone
He is not a single dad who's bad at romance. He's a man who's spent the last two years trying to make up for a tragedy that he couldn't have fixed if he tried.”
― Cynthia Gunderson, The Hot Shot

“You don't have to earn love, Jake. But the first person you need to convince is yourself, because nobody else will be able to give it to you if you take it off the table." Or worse, they'll give you what looks like love, and you'll be so desperate to accept it, yoưll let them drag you deeper than you were before”
― Cynthia Gunderson, The Hot Shot

“I was never planning on giving you up.”
― Cynthia Gunderson, One Last Christmas

“I have a rule about not going inside people's childhood homes. It's nothing laminated or stuck to my fridge, but it sits between "don't text your ex after midnight" and "never rewatch your video messages." There's just something too intimate about stepping into the place that made someone. Like sneaking in and reading their diary.”
― Cynthia Gunderson, The Hot Shot

“You don't have to earn the right to be valued. And you don't have to save enough people, cook enough dinners, or not screw up your son enough, or anything else to be allowed to be happy.
Trust me. I've done the math. I tried for years to make up for things my family blamed me for, and it doesn't add up. Then I tried to earn it in my relationships and that was a hot mess. It will never be enough.”
― Cynthia Gunderson

“His arm curled around her waist like a snap bracelet and pulled her flush against his body. She’d barely processed her sudden change of location when Tyler tipped her chin up. Without a word, he slipped his fingers down the side of her neck and kissed her.”
― Cynthia Gunderson, Against the Boards

“I don't know. I get that people talk about phones being like heroin or something, but they're not going anywhere. When kids turn eighteen, are they just going to go from nothing to unlimited phone use and somehow know how to handle it? I don't know anything about parenting, but I do remember what it felt like to be that age. I felt so grown up.”
― Cynthia Gunderson, The Hot Shot

“Gaudreau should've passed. He had Tkachuk wide open on the left.”
― Cynthia Gunderson, Against the Boards