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“A Hmong proverb observes: ‘One stick cannot cook a meal or build a fence.’ If a meal needed to be cooked or a fence built, the sticks had no choice but to pick themselves up and bundle together.”

“He hates being on display, hates witnessing those who try use to familiarity as currency.”

“How is pain a gift?”
“I’m not sure either one of us could explain it, Mabel, except to say it’s the pain of loving and being loved. All I can say is that once you felt it, the only thing worse than the stabbing pain is the absence of it.”

“I believe a strong woman may be stronger than a man, particularly if she happens to have love in her heart. I guess a loving woman is almost indestructible.”

"Do you take pride in your hurt?" Samuel asked. "Does it make you seem large and tragic?"
"I don't know."
"Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as the audience."

“I sometimes think there should be a service one could gift the grieving: the steadfast presence of someone who still believes joy can be found. Someone willing to hunt for it on your behalf.”

“It strikes me that of all the cruelties in the world, there’s nothing quite as dangerous as kindness.”

It was a good thing she got herself into this other school. It showed her that there were other worlds besides the world she’s been born into and that these other worlds were not unattainable.

“There had to be the dark and muddy waters so that the sun could have something to background is flashing glory.”

“I wonder if, like newborn children, we go through our entire lives looking for a face, longing for a particular gaze that calms and fills us, that loves and welcomes us, that recognizes and runs to greet us.”

“A man who loves all women loves no woman. A man who loves only one woman loves all women.”

“I know you deal with some mighty bad people, but it might do you good to look at some faces sometimes. There are real people in those faces.”

“Baby, they's justice and they's mercy, If you not sure what to do and you gotta choose one or the other, I say always go the mercy way. If you make a mistake, make it for mercy. Bad mercy don't hurt nearly like bad justice, and always remember, the Eye of God can see."

The older I get, the more convinced I am that every hurt the world has ever known is somehow the fault of every person who ever lived. Maybe not directly and never entirely, but somehow, I fear, we own all of the world’s hurts together.”

“I simply help people sit still long enough to see what is already there.”

“No, Boomba was no monster. All Boomba was, was a man whose moral compass pointed toward the north of his own family. Wasn’t that the most ordinary thing in the world?”

“Please understand. Please understand that our lives are fuller, more bursting, more replete, than is possible for your documents and questionaries to contain.”

“Fragile hearts break in palaces and dark alleys alike.”

I’m not entirely sure what I read or if I could summarize the plot to anyone else but I loved the characters so much?!?!?!?

3.5 rounded up. I really loved this authors writing style. Short, declarative, plays well with ADD. Will definitely read more of her work.

“And if they could all hold on to those reminders, if they could help each other create them, maybe together they would be able to make it through the godforsaken war. Not necessarily whole, but human.”

“Lionesses. Us. Can’t you just see it, Ellie?

We are cubs now, maybe. But we will grow to be lionesses. Strong women who make things happen.”

Reread from, like, 20 years ago?!?!

“Love cannot possibly be simple, or easy, despite all the adages to the contrary. When we choose to chisel pieces of our heart away to offer to another person, we must always make decisions. What flaws will we lift to the light? And which will be bury, in the hopes of protecting ourselves and others?

Started super strong. Beautifully written. Didn’t love the end / was kind of over it by the last section.

I literally no nothing about tennis….and absolutely could not put this down. What a treasure trove of character development and depth.

one of those books you wonder if you got a different version than everyone else becauuussseeee 👎🏻🥱😵‍💫