The Book of Lost Names

by Kristin Harmel

She doesn’t understand what it means to love books so passionately that you would die without them, that you would simply stop breathing, stop existing.

One’s reward for marching through the decades is a gradual process of erasure.

But when you grow comfortable hiding within a protective shell, it’s harder than one might expect to stand up and say, “Actually, folks, this is who I am.”

He had taught her to love reading, one of the greatest gifts a parent could give a child, and in doing so, he had opened the world to her.

I packed away the remnants of the life I once knew. In the way that children often can’t conceive of their parents as independent beings with dreams and desires of their own,

“Remember that God’s plan for you might be different than the plan you have for yourself.”

I would rather die knowing I tried to do the right thing than live knowing I had turned my back.

Life turns on the decisions we make, the single moments that transform everything.

parents make all sorts of errors, because our ability to raise our children is always colored by the lives we’ve lived before they came along.

“You’re still you. You’ve just found the strength inside yourself that was there from the start.”

as long as we believe, we take our faith with us, whatever we do, wherever we go, if our motives are pure.”

Only you know what your relationship is with God, and you should never let anyone take that from you.”

The path of life is darkest when we choose to walk it alone.”

That’s what books were for, after all. They were passageways to other worlds, other realities, other lives one could imagine living.

It was a reminder that it didn’t matter where someone had come from; virtue could live within everyone.

You can’t judge a person by their language or their place of origin—though

here. Once you’ve fallen in love with books, their presence can make you feel at home anywhere, even in places where you shouldn’t belong.

I want to remind you that God knows who you are. He always has and always will. He sees your hearts, even in the darkness.”

“I used to think that memories were less painful when you held them close. I think perhaps that isn’t true, though. Now I think pain loses its power when we share it.”

Hope was a dangerous thief, stealing her todays for a tomorrow that would never come.

“You do honor her—and me—every day by being the kind of person we raised you to be.”

Some chapters must be finished, though, some books closed.

But we aren’t defined by the names we carry or the religion we practice, or the nation whose flag flies over our heads. I know that now. We’re defined by who we are in our hearts, who we choose to be on this earth.”

those “who realize that books are magic… will have the brightest lives.”