Holly

“I remember that first time I squirted her, she panicked and ran to me for comfort. She clung to me, and I petted her until she calmed down. That’s how I was with Kenny. That’s how you were with Angie.” Amanda said this with conviction. “It’s the curse of the motherless child. We seek comfort from the very people who do us harm.”
― Karin Slaughter, The Kept Woman

“OUR LIVES AND the lives of those we love merge to create a river whose current carries us forward from our beginning to our end. Because we are only one part of the whole, the river each of us remembers is different, and there are many versions of the stories we tell about the past. In all of them there is truth, and in all of them a good deal of innocent misremembering.”
― William Kent Krueger, The River We Remember

“When he comes crawling to you in tears the next morning, you don’t actually believe him anymore. But now this is just what you do. The same way you fix the hole in your dress with a safety pin or tape up the crack in a window. That’s the part I was stuck in, the part where you accept the apology because it’s easier than addressing the root of the problem,”
― Taylor Jenkins Reid, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

“It’s because mothers—and, honestly, women in general—are conditioned from birth to feel guilty about something. We always think things are our fault. We always feel the need to apologize: For being too much or too little. Too loud or too quiet. Too driven or too content.”
― Stacy Willingham, All the Dangerous Things