Leah Johnson

“It isn’t like it is in movies”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“Being a parent is so strange”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“Once she asked if it made him feel better to know more than other people. He said tartly, “My feelings don’t matter in the least. What matters is what’s true.”
― Sandra Newman, Julia

“When I knew my mother would be dead in a few months, I had two choices . . .” She looked at him. “I could distance myself from the pain or get closer to it. Maybe because I’d lost my dad without getting a chance to tell him what he meant to me, I decided to get closer. I got so close, her pain and fear became my own. We shared everything and loved each other like we never had when death was some distant thing. In the end, part of me died with her. I’m not recovered from it even now, but I made the conscious choice to enter the darkness with her. Everyone I know who’s lost someone they love has voiced regrets—they wish they’d done this or that or loved them more. I have no regrets. None.”
― Glendy Vanderah, Where the Forest Meets the Stars