Michelle Hendricks > Recent Status Updates

Era la sed y el hambre, y tú fuiste la fruta.

Era el duelo y las ruinas, y tú fuiste el milagro.

Pablo Neruda - La canción desesperada

I know now that I don’t want to love or be loved in half measures. I want it all, and to have it all, you have to risk it all.

“In the contract we said we wouldn’t break each other’s hearts. What if we do it again?” Fiercely he says, “What if we do? If we’re so guarded, it’s not going to be anything. Let’s do it fucking for real, Lara Jean. Let’s go all in. No more contract. No more safety net. You can break my heart. Do whatever you want with it.”

Not sure which page this quote was from, but I like it. People come in and out of your life. For a time they are your world; they are everything. And then one day they’re not. There’s no telling how long you will have them near.

There’s a Korean word my grandma taught me. It’s called jung. It’s the connection between two people that can’t be severed, even when love turns to hate. You still have those old feelings for them; you can’t ever completely shake them loose of you; you will always have tenderness in your heart for them.

Margot gives me (Lara Jean) an impressed nod. I’ve never seen anybody move through the five stages of grief that fast. You really do have an incredible bounce back.

There is a tipping point for all things. Beyond which change becomes unstoppable. ~Jack Spaulding (Lana’s father)

I wasn’t powerless. I didn’t have to go into work every day as the misery of unrequited love embalmed the joy out of me. I’d just resign like a boss. People did it all the time!

Blah. Book had to be returned. Made it chapter 22 though!! 😞 Waiting in the queue again...

More favorites:

Our hatred is a victory for them. (Professor Morgenschtern)

There is no doubt that love and madness share some common traits.

Who knows what page it is in an audiobook?!

Passages I’ve liked:
If God exists, then so does the Devil. They are travelers on the same railway; moving in opposite directions.

Renee would like to hate him (Viktor). She knows it’s her duty to hate him. But hate is too much like love. Neither of them is a matter of choice. (Chapter 16).

Andrew suddenly came to the realization that he had been crying for the future version of himself, his death unmourned at a service in a drafty church with only the walls to receive the Vicar’s perfunctory words.

The development of our personalities doesn’t take place in isolation, but in relationship with others - we are shaped and completed by unseen, unremembered forces; namely our parents. This is frightening, for obvious reasons. Who knows that indignities we suffered, what torments and abuses, in this land before memory?

Your life is supposed to be a journey from one unique place to another; it’s not supposed to be a merry-go-round that brings you back to the same spot over and over again.

If I weren’t 2/3 of the way through, I think I’d quit reading! The story started strong. Now it is dragging on and on.

Sometimes your life changes so slowly and imperceptibly that you don’t notice it at all until one day you wake up and think: How did I get here? But other times life changes in an instant, with a lightning stroke of good or bad luck, with glorious or tragic consequences. And suddenly your life takes a violet swerve in an entirely new direction.

(Napoleon) “The lowest point of your life can lead to the highest. I just find that so...” For a moment he looked profoundly sad. “Interesting.”

(Napoleon) When he first met his wife’s odd detached parents he understood that Heather had grown up starved of love, and when you’re starved of something you should receive in abundance, you never quite trust it.

He’d been too young and happy to know that love wasn’t enough; too young to know all the ways that life could break you.

Claire said her parents didn’t love her; I don’t know if that’s true. There are different kinds of love - one word could never accurately describe them all. Some are easier to feel than others, some are more dangerous. People say there’s nothing like a mother’s love - take that away and you’ll find there is nothing like a daughter’s hate.

I tread carefully over a carpet of lies, trying not to disturb them.

Madeline thinks it must be food poisoning. I think it is far more likely to be the laxatives I put in her coffee just before we went on air. She’s a no fit state to drive herself home so I offer. She sleeps as I drive and I decide I like her a lot better like this. Silenced. The poison is trapped inside her while she sleeps, opposed to sipping from her lips when she is awake.

Blackheath was meant to rehabilitate us, but bars can’t build better men and misery can only break what goodness remains. This place pinches out the hope in people, and without that hope what use is love or compassion or kindness? Blackheath speaks to the monster in us, and I have no intention of indulging mine any longer. It’s had free reign long enough. (Gold/Aiden)

Folding my arms, I lean against the wall next to Anna, our shoulders touching. I’m trying to offer some comfort, but knowing you’ve killed somebody in a previous life tends to narrow possible avenues of affection.
(Rashton/Aiden to Anna)

I know this makes you squeamish, that you don’t have the stomach for it. I was the same, but I know longer have the time to tiptoe around my ethics. I can end this tonight and I mean to, so don’t measure me by how tightly I cling to my goodness, measure me by what I’m willing to sacrifice that you might cling to yours. If I fail, you can always try another way. (Coleridge to Dance)

We are never more ourselves and when we think people aren’t watching. Don’t you realize that? It doesn’t matter if Stanwin’s alive tomorrow; you murdered him today. You murdered a man cold blood.
(Dance to Coleridge)

I’d been hoping to find an inscription or letter concealed inside, but the Bible is empty of wisdom. Clutching it in both hands, I make a clumsy attempt at prayer, hoping to rekindle whatever faith I once possessed, but the entire endeavor feels like foolishness. Religion has abandoned me along with everything else.

Tate’s devotion eventually convinced her that human love is more than the bizarre mating competitions of the marsh creatures, but life also taught her that ancient genes for survival still persist in some undesirable forms among the twist interns of man’s genetic code.

Seriously, when does this book start living up to it’s 4 and 5 star reviews?! I’m kinda pot committed at this point, and will push to finish it, but not super excited here. 😔

Nature is audacious enough to ensure that the males who send out dishonest signals or go from one female to the next almost always end up alone. 🤔

I don’t think I would have ended my marriage, stood up to Frankie, had the chance to write a surefire bestseller, or would understand the true depths of my father’s devotion to me without Evelyn Hugo. So I think Evelyn is wrong about at least one thing. My hate is not uncomplicated.