Quotes from book

Everything I Never Told You: A Novel

“How had it begun? Like everything: with mothers and fathers. Because of Lydia’s mother and father, because of her mother’s and father’s mothers and fathers.”

“What made something precious? Losing it and finding it.”

“She understands. There is nowhere to go but on. Still, part of her longs to go back”

“The things that go unsaid are often the things that eat at you--whether because you didn't get to have your say, or because the other person never got to hear you and really wanted to.”

“He pushed her in. And then he pulled her out. All her life, Lydia would remember one thing. All his life, Nath would remember another.”

“You loved so hard and hoped so much and then you ended up with nothing. Children who no longer needed you. A husband who no longer wanted you. Nothing left but you, alone, and empty space.”

“You never got what you wanted; you just learned to get by without it.”

“People decide what you're like before they even get to know you”

“Before that she hadn’t realized how fragile happiness was, how if you were careless, you could knock it over and shatter it.”

“It’s too late. He’s already learned how not to drown.”

“It would disappear forever from her memory of Lydia, the way memories of a lost loved one always smooth and simplify themselves, shedding complexities like scales.”

“You don't feel like smiling? Then what? Force yourself to smile. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy.”