Kelly Quindlen > Quotes

“I can tell you that I believe—that the human heart’s mysterious ability to love others is never wrong. Your heart will never ask your permission to love. It’s going to love whomever it was made to love, and the best thing you can do is follow it.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“Because before you can worry about who’s in your passenger seat, you have to learn to drive yourself.”
― Kelly Quindlen, She Drives Me Crazy

“I remember feeling like I was both too much and not enough.”
― Kelly Quindlen, She Drives Me Crazy

“Love ultimately wins, Hannah. Love ultimately saves.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“She sees herself, and she does not look away.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“Your heart will never ask your permission to love.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“No one ever told me that it might be different. That it would be okay to be different.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“I hate you," I say. Then I kiss her and kiss her and kiss her.”
― Kelly Quindlen, She Drives Me Crazy

“My sweet girls, let me tell you something. You will move through life and fall in love with many different people, and at some point, you will get your heart broken. It's unavoidable. The key is to not be afraid of the breaking. People break our hearts, but they create more room in them first, and that room makes it possible for us to become more ourselves.”
― Kelly Quindlen, She Drives Me Crazy

“We weren't made to be alone. We were made to love. And when we love, we automatically know God without trying to, because God is love. If we love as he made us to love—if we love with our hearts instead of our criteria—then we simply are love.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“Hannah searches the clouds, the gulls, the sun. She wants to leave and she wants to stay. She wants to raise her hand to the heavens and command that everything top, that time stills, that the rules and the laws retract their grip so nature can have her way. Hannah wants to sit up off her towel and look across her friend's lined-up bodies, frozen in time beneath the sky, and she wants to pull Baker out of their midst, out of time, and walk with her along the shoreline, following the infinite ocean, nothing moving on the whole green earth except for the two of them and the water and the sky.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“We have to take ownership for our words. Words are powerful. They can be devastating. If your words carry hate--if they shame others, if they make them doubt that they are loved--Hannah, you don't want to own words like that.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“Please,’ Hannah cries, sitting up on her knees and sobbing to the sky. She chokes, shudders, blinks away the tears. ‘Please, either help me or take this away from me. I don’t want this anymore.’
But her stormy heart does not settle. Her muscles do not relax. She looks at the stars and wonders why God made them so good, so brilliant, but made her so wrong and broken. Her eyes spill over with tears and her throat burns. She pounds her fists into the earth, into the grass and soil, and emits an animal-like cry from the depths of her body.
‘Please,’ she sobs, digging her hands into the soil. ‘Please.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“I’m sorry,’ Hannah says. ‘I’m sorry for putting you through this—I’m sorry for not telling you—I’m sorry for being the way that I am—’
“‘Don’t you say that,’ her mom says, jerking back from her and shaking her shoulders.
“‘Don’t you ever say that,’ her dad says, tears spilling forth from his eyes.
“Her mom looks at her straight on, and her expression is resolute. ‘God knew exactly what He was doing when He created you, Hannah.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“my youth is infinite but my fears are intimate”
― Kelly Quindlen, Late to the Party

“It's just us, right?'
Hannah walks to her. She touches her cheek and finds her eyes. There is a desperate light hanging on her pupils. A flicker of passion, a flicker of shame.
'It's just us.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“I hurt you," Baker cries. "I hurt the one person I love more than anything else in the world." The swelling in Hannah's throat threatens to explode. Her sinuses prickle; her body rushes with uncontrollable feeling. "I hurt you, Han. I hurt you," Baker says, her body convulsing. The sobs burst out of Hannah's throat. "Yeah," she cries, choking on the word, hating that she needs to release it. "Yeah, you did. You hurt me. You really hurt me." Baker's face contorts with anguish. Her chin trembles; her mouth gaps around shuddering breaths. Her eyes bleed with agony. "I'm so-" she heaves. "I'm so-" "But Baker," Hannah says, touching a hand to her tears, "you also saved me." Baker's face screws up again. She heaves with more sobs, placing a hand over her ribs. "You saved me, too," she cries.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“Hi,” she says, her voice level and cool. “This bitch’s name is Irene.”
― Kelly Quindlen, She Drives Me Crazy

“I think saying what you're afraid of makes you brave.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Late to the Party

“Hate like that—when it's disguised as love, or righteousness or pity—I'm not going to subject you to hate like that.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“I’ve been where you are, Scottie. That kind of crazy, flesh-eating pain that consumes every part of you. I understand wanting to get back at them. Wanting their attention, even if it’s in a negative way. But the shitty thing is, that never helps you feel better. It just lands you in a worse situation, like towing the car of a perfectly nice girl who had nothing to do with the pain you’re in.”
― Kelly Quindlen, She Drives Me Crazy

“Our fingers brush and I feel the electricity on our skin, radiant enough to power this street full of lights”
― Kelly Quindlen, She Drives Me Crazy

“I think that the most essential thing is that God didn’t want Adam to be alone. God wanted Adam to be able to love someone. To have a relationship that reflected God’s own love. And so he made Eve so that Adam could love her. So that Adam could be fully human. And when he made Eve, he gave her the miraculous capacity to love Adam back. Do you ever think about how crazy that is? – Our miraculous capacity to love? We don’t know why, we don’t know how, but our hearts and souls are drawn to others. We weren’t made to be alone. We were made to love. And when we love, we automatically know God without even trying to, because God is love. If we love as he made us to love-if we love with our hearts instead of our criteria- then we simply are love.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“And I think being friends with someone should be like the concept of infinity—like you truly believe that person has no limits, and you just want to keep counting upward with them to see where they go.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Late to the Party

“She thinks about Christ. How she'd like to lay everything down at his feet. "Here you go," she'd say, dropping everything down like a pile of wood. "You gave me this, and I have no idea what to do with it." Then she'd take out a key, a big, clunky, golden key and she'd reach to unlock her heart with it. Her heart would open up and all kinds of wondrous things would come spilling out - maybe rushing forth like a waterfall, or maybe fluttering out gently like a butterfly. "Here it is," she'd tell him. "Everything that's in my heart, for you and me to see.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“I was scared of you. Being around you, it was like—you were everything I wasn’t supposed to want. You’re—no one told me about you. When I was growing up, it was always, ‘One day, when you meet a nice boy,’ or, ‘When you have a husband….’ No one ever told me that it might be different. That it would be okay to be different.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“She sets a hand on the cold sand and pushes herself forward until her lips meet Baker's with the delicate touch of tree leaves. And there on the beach, with the sand, the sky, and the water as their witnesses, Baker kisses her back, and Hannah hopes desperately that the crashing of the waves is a celebration rather than a condemnation.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“You grow up with these ideas about Teenagers, about their wild, vibrant, dramatic lives of breaking rules and making out and Being Alive, and you know that it’s your destiny to become one of them someday, but suddenly you’re seventeen and you’re watching people cannonball into a swimming pool in the pouring rain, and you realize you still haven’t become a real Teenager, and maybe you never will.”
― Kelly Quindlen, Late to the Party

“She'd ask him to stand in her kitchen when Baker came over to hang out. She'd have him witness Baker's laughter, her smile, her kind heart, her vulnerability. Baker wouldn't see him, but he would see everything: the goodness of her heart and the light in her eyes. And afterwards, Hannah would ask him, 'How could I not love her?”
― Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

“People break our hearts, but they create more room in them first, and that room makes it possible for us to become more ourselves.”
― Kelly Quindlen, She Drives Me Crazy