The Book of Lost Names

by Kristin Harmel

“How nice it must be,” I say softly to Kühn’s picture, “to be haunted by questions rather than ghosts.”

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.

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.”

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

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.

don’t know. I think there’s a certain value to being able to change when it’s necessary. Otherwise, we’d never grow.”

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

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