We All Live Here

by Jojo Moyes

If you didn’t want me to write shit about you, you should have been nicer to me.

The key, I’ve found, to moving forward, is asking myself, during these moments: do I want to be right? Or do I want to be happy?

“It’s not a traditional family,” Eleanor had said, earlier that evening, when Lila had commented on how much easier she was finding it, “but that doesn’t mean it’s not a family.”

There are periods of your life in which all that is really required is to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

It turns out that knowing something is entirely your fault does not necessarily help you get over it.

This is life at this age, she muses, a million goodbyes, and you never know which are the final ones. You just absorb them, like little shocks, trusting with each one that you’ll be able to keep moving forward.

You can hang on to anger and bitterness your whole life. But all you really do is prolong your own pain.