The Light Between Oceans: A Novel

by M.L. Stedman

You don’t think ahead in years or months: you think about this hour, and maybe the next. Anything else is speculation.

“We can’t rightly ever talk about the future, if you think about it. We can only talk about what we imagine, or wish for. It’s not the same thing.”

sometimes the contract to forget is as important as any promise to remember.

History is that which is agreed upon by mutual consent.

Right and wrong can be like bloody snakes: so tangled up that you can’t tell which is which until you’ve shot ’em both, and then it’s too late.”

That’s what bravery is. Standing by the consequences of your mistakes.”

“As long as one has good things in the mind, one can be happy. This I know.”

Sometimes, forgetting is the only way back to normality.

“Sometimes life turns out hard, Isabel. Sometimes it just bites right through you. And sometimes, just when you think it’s done its worst, it comes back and takes another chunk.”

You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things.”