He is a gruff old man, but Addie likes him. Sees the sadness in his anger, the guardedness of grief.
“Because she knew it, too. She felt that freedom. It felt like love. The best thing I ever did was letting your mother go. No one is perfect, Katy. Perfect doesn’t exist. What we had was pretty fucking good, though.”
― One Italian Summer
― One Italian Summer
“Good enough for whom? For people who are trapped in a life that is not of their own making? Surely you can see that they merely want you to be trapped with them, so they will feel less alone in their emptiness. Be careful, Martha, you’ll become blind to your own value if you keep looking through the eyes of the bourgeoisie!”
― The Lost Bookshop
― The Lost Bookshop
“We made promises in a world lit with light. We do not know how to keep them in the darkness.”
― One Italian Summer
― One Italian Summer
“History, memory is by definition fiction. Once an event is no longer present, but remembered, it is narrative. And we can choose the narratives we tell—about our own lives, our own stories, our own relationships. We can choose the chapters we give meaning.”
― One Italian Summer
― One Italian Summer
“There are a few times in life when you leap up and the past that you’d been standing on falls away behind you, and the future you mean to land on is not yet in place, and for a moment you’re suspended, knowing nothing and no one, not even yourself.”
― The Dutch House
― The Dutch House
Leslie’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Leslie’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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