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There Are Always Times In Life That You Don't Fit In. But You Have To Go Forward And Make A Place For Yourself. That's What Growing Up Is All About. Being Strong And Believing In Yourself-even When You're Most Afraid.

-Kristin Hannah

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There Are Always Times

Kristin Hannah

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There Are Always Times In Life That You Don't Fit In. But You Have To Go Forward And Make A Place For Yourself. That's What Growing Up Is All About. Being Strong And Believing In Yourself-even When You're Most Afraid.

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The Measure Of A Society Is Its Compassion.

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It Had Been Years Since She Question His Fidelity, But He'd Stepped On To The Old Fame Track Again, And That Was Where The Road Had Taken Them Before. Infidelity Could Be Forgiven, But Forgetting It Was Impossible. Strangely, That Wasn't What Bothered Her The Most. What Bothered Her Was That She Didn't Really Care.

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Popularity Means People Think They Know You.

Hands Down, The Hardest Part For Me Is Coming Up With An Idea. I Spend About 14 Months Writing A Book, And That's A Lot Of Hours Spent Thinking About A Single Project. I Simply Have To Love The Idea. I'll Go Through Dozens Of Workable Ideas Until I Find The One That Lights My Fire.

Goddamn, Sometimes It Hurt To Be Free.

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Real Friends. The Kind That Don't Purposely Hurt Your Feelings Or Stop Liking You For No Reason.

No Mother. Two Small Words, And Yet Within Them Lay A Bottomless Well Of Pain And Loss, A Ceaseless Mourning For Touches That Were Never Received And Words Of Wisdom That Were Never Spoken. No Single Word Was Big Enough To Adequately Describe The Loss Of Your Mother.

A Romance Novel Focuses Exclusively On Two People Falling In Love. It Can't Be About A Woman Caring For Her Aging Mother Or Something Like That. It Can Have That Element, But It Has To Be Primarily About The Male-female Relationship.

Falling In Love

....both Had Learned That Everything Could Change In An Instant, And That The Heartfelt Vows Of People In Love Were Fragile Words That, Once Shattered, Could Cut So Deeply You'd Bleed Forever.

Marriages Go Through Hard Times. Sometimes You Have To Get In There And Fight For Your Love. That's The Only Way For It To Get Better.

You Couldn't Give Up You For Them. But What If You Wanted Them More Than You Wanted A Singular Powerful You?

Nothing Was Easier To Shatter Than The Fragile Shield Of An Idealist.

You Look Great," He Said. It Made Her Smile, Even If It Was A Lie. "i'm As Big As A House." He Laughed. "i Like Houses. In Fact, I'm Thinking About Architecture As A Career.

At One Point, She'd Wanted To Hurl The Whole Breakfast At The Wall. And Then She'd Remember Why It Was That Men Had Temper Tantrums And Women Didn't: Cleanup.

We Women. As Glue For The Family. Lead Lives That Are Important And Conflicted. What We Women Choose To Give Up For Our Families Is Important And Valid.

And No One Drank Just One Shot Of Tequila.

Fifteen Minutes Later, Betsy Came Thundering Down The Stairs. "i'm Going To The Mall With Sierra To See A Movie." Michael Leaned Forward, Switched Off The Television. "can You Please Rephrase That In The Form Of A Question?" "sure. Can I Have Some Money?

That Was The Thing About Best Friends. Like Sisters And Mothers, They Could Piss You Off And Make You Cry And Break Your Heart, But In The End, When The Chips Were Down, They Were There, Making You Laugh Even In Your Darkest Hours.

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Black And White

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Jude Remembered This Pain. Every Woman Had Felt Some Version Of It: The End Of First Love. It Was When You Learned, For Good And Always, That Love Could Be Impermanent.

Honestly, I Believe That The Mother-daughter Relationship Is Magical, Complex, Potentially Dangerous, Profoundly Powerful, And Deeply Transformative. To Put It Simply, All Of Us Have This Relationship, And In A Very Real Way, "none Of Us Comes Out Alive." We Are All Formed First As Daughters And Then Tested As Mothers. There's Nothing Like Motherhood To Make Us Reassess How We Were As Daughters.

Sometimes Holding On Was All You Could Do.

Alice Started To Cry. It Came With No Sound, No Shuddering, No Childlike Hysterics, Just A Soul-deep Release That Turned Into Moisture And Dripped Down Her Puffy Pink Cheeks. She Touched Her Tears, Frowning. Then She Looked Up At Julia And Whimpered Two Words Before She Fell Asleep. ‘real Hurts.’

She Still Felt Shell-shocked By All Of It, Numb. Beneath The Numbness, Though, Was A Raw And Terrible Anger That Was Unlike Anything She'd Felt Before. She Had So Little Experience With Genuine Anger That It Scared Her. She Actually Worried That If She Started Screaming, She'd Never Stop.

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Rest Of Your Life

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Pacific Northwest

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...this Fear Was Unbearable. It Unwrapped Who She Was, As Neatly As He'd Unwound Her Bandage, Leaving Too Much Pain And Ugliness Exposed. Nerve Endings; He'd Said They Were The Problem [causing Phantom Pain In The Amputated Limb]." Things That Cut Off, That Ended Abruptly Or Died--like Parents And Marriages--kept Hurting Forever.

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Love And Family

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That Was What A Best Friend Did: Hold Up A Mirror And Show You Your Heart.

It Was The Magic Hour, The Moment In Time When Every Leaf And Blade Of Grass Seemed To Separate, When Sunlight, Burnished By The Rain And Softened By The Coming Night, Gave The World An Impossibly Beautiful Glow.

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Rest Of Your Life

It’s A Promise Ring,” He Said Solemnly. “the Lady At The Store Said It’s What You Give The Girl You Love. It Means I Want To Marry You Someday.

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