Isabelle Simonson > Recent Status Updates

“Be still. Close your eyes. Breathe. Listen for my footfall in your heart. I am not gone but merely walk within you.” - 255

“There are choices. It’s just that sometimes the important ones aren’t ours to make.” - 219

“All he could think of was that these few precious moments were all he would ever have of her and that he must live them and feel them with every particle of his being. And then store them away and treasure them for the rest of his life.” - 221

“You could worry yourself sick trying to be a better person, spend a thousand sleepless nights figuring out how to live clean and decent and honest…kneeling by your bed every night and swear to God you’d stick to it, hell you could go to church and promise properly…and then, like a hawk on a rat, some nameless catastrophe would swoop into your life and turn everything upside down and inside out forever.” 1

“You could worry yourself sick trying to be a better person, spend a thousand sleepless nights figuring out how to live clean and decent and honest…kneel by your bed every night and swear to God you’d stick to it, hell, you could go to church and promise properly…and then…like a hawk on a rat, some nameless catastrophe would swoop into your life and turn everything upside down and inside out forever.” -1

“Letting people love and care for you is part of how you love and care for them.” - 362

“He smiled to think of it, the ways in which he would mess this whole thing up. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? The small mistakes and heartbreaks of guiding a life? His mother had screwed up almost as much as she had succeeded. But the one thing he knew in his bones was that he would not leave.” - 350

“He needed his children now that he was alone. Now that he was afraid he wasn’t going to matter very soon. Now that he had a house that echoed. But they didn’t need him.” - 342

“If I exist on this earth, someone loves you.” “I think the problem, Dad, is that your love doesn’t mean very much.” - 344

“There’s no room for you in my life anymore. And I don’t owe it to you to make any space.” - 341

“Maybe you owe your parents nothing, maybe you owe them everything.” - 322

“She knew that she could not sustain her life fueled only by the memories of those she once loved. Loss would not propel her forward. She had to go out and live.” - 319

“You are a big somebody to the world, Dad. We all know that. We live with it every goddamn day. But let’s be clear about one thing, you are not anybody’s father.” - 317

“Nina would not break her gaze…It would not be her that bent and broke anymore.” - 317

“Hungry Heart started playing through her speakers and Ashley felt just the tiniest bit of hope. Your whole world can be falling apart, she thought, but then Springsteen will started playing on the radio.” - 310

“I’ve been really sad that I…that I meant so little to someone who had made me believe I meant so much.” - 276

“Nina, her entire life, had been programmed to accept…for so long, Nina had believed it was her greatest strength—that she could withstand, that she could endure, that she would accept it all and keep going. It was so foreign to her, the idea of declaring that something was unacceptable.” - 271-272

“Every day of your life feels like you’re climbing up a mountain. And then you get there and you stay for a bit. And it’s nice at the top. But then you start sliding down the other side.” - 260-261

“What did it take? To say exactly what you meant? To feel comfortable in the middle of causing discomfort? To not feel—so intrinsically as to be as vital to yourself as your blood—that it was your responsibility to make things smooth and pleasant for everyone?” 229-230

“With you, it is just the one problem. And it affects everything you do…I suspect you have not lived a single day for yourself.” -232

“Maybe our parents’ lives are imprinted within us, maybe the only fate there is is the temptation of reliving their mistakes. Maybe, try as we might, we will never be able to outrun the blood that runs through our veins. Or. Or maybe we are free the moment we’re born. Maybe everything we’ve ever done is by our own hands. Nina wasn’t sure.” - 191

“If she was totally honest with herself, she thought he was sort of blandly handsome. She found his white-bread style a little embarrassing. He didn’t make her laugh very hard and he didn’t blow her mind in bed…but when she thought of a life with Brandon, her muscles relaxed and breath came easier. He felt like falling into a warm, soft bed. And she was so tired.” - 187

“What a gift it was to know so clearly what you were not, who you did not want to be.” - 161-162

“Alcoholism is a disease with many faces, and some of them look beautiful.” - 133

“When there is only you, you do not get to choose which jobs you want, you do not get to decide you are incapable of anything…you must do it all. All of the ugliness, the sadness, the things most people can’t stand to even think about, all must live inside of you. You must be capable of everything.” - 147

“Malibu was a place to live, like any other. It was where you brushed your teeth and burned dinner and ran errands, just with a view of the Pacific. Someone should tell them all, Nina thought, paradise doesn’t exist.” - 94

“June used the only tool at her disposal: a dining room chair. She lodged it underneath the knob of the front door and then sat on it. And for the first time in her life, she wished she were heavier. She wished she were broad and tall and stout. Hefty and mighty. How silly of her to have worked so hard to stay trim and small this whole time.” - 81

“How were you supposed to change—in ways both big and small—when your family was always there to remind you of exactly the person you apparently signed an ironclad contract to be?” - 74

“His glory, his money, his partnership with his brother…One little defect in his body would take it all. But on hearing that, Lara said, ‘OK, so you’ll find something else to be’…that was when he’d fallen in love with her. When she made what had felt like a fatal blow seem easily overcome.” - 69

“Mick didn’t want to go through the world alone. He had one of those hearts that stick to things. And he wanted to stick to her. She seemed like such a good one to stick to.” - 41

“What do you want out of this life together?” “Adventure. Big, small. I want to go on every adventure life has to offer. With you.” - 435

“Gwen, I need you. Like my next breath. It’s…I can’t breathe without you…where you go, I’ll follow. I don’t care as long as we’re together.” “Where I want to be is here. With you. Always.” - 424

“I’m never going to run again, okay?” “Good, because I’m never letting you go.” - 429

“What I keep coming back to is this: I can’t live without you.” - 377

“I thought I lose you. And I love you, and I hadn’t even gotten the chance to tell you.” - 423

“It just seemed too…obvious. Like, of course I’m in love with him. And of course he’s in love with me. Why else would we be risking it all for a shot at making this thing work?” - 423

“My eyes trace his features, just like they did that first night we met…Perfect, is all I can think now. But it’s more than that. It’s him knowing me. Knowing I don’t want roses. Or diamonds. I want this. Adventures. With him.” - 293

“I’m never going to get enough. I can promise you that much. I’ll always be coming back to you.” - 366

“It’s the simple things. It’s building a life with someone. I’d settle for just that. But it can’t be just someone. I think deep down I want it to be the one. I’ve been hurt too badly for it not to be. And when I think of the one, I think of her.” - 248