Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt (The Seven Sisters #8)

by Lucinda Riley

I know from experience how both locks and promises can be so easily broken.

The problem with kindness was that it meant you let your guard down, and I knew I mustn’t do that, whatever the cost.

‘Coincidence means only that there is a connection waiting to be discovered, after all.’

‘I think that our lives are like heartbeats, displayed on a monitor. They go up and down. And what does that tell you? That you are alive, my dears.’

‘Pa used to say that to experience the best moments in life, you have to know the worst,’ Tiggy said.

All I can tell you is that you have walked into the darkness without a candle before, and at the end of your journey, found a light.

“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are going.”’

‘It is hard to remember sometimes, particularly when you have experienced the sadness which I can sense in you . . . but in this life, there are far more good people than there are bad.’

Life is about people, and there is no worse punishment than loneliness.

She is like music in that way, able to transport me to a place beyond the physical ground beneath my feet.

I suppose I felt the need to take up my pen once more because tonight is Christmas Eve, and my father used to impress upon me that it was a time to reflect on the previous year, and to mark the passing of time in one’s mind.

‘Well, it is Christmas Day after all – a time which reminds us that we are only alive once, and must not waste a moment.’

‘You’ve got to remember that life is a gift, mista. Whatever the circumstances.’

‘Mr T, someone’s only a burden when they don’t need no ’elp but ask for it anyway.

‘What is better, to learn the truth and be empty, or to live in hope? After all, it is the only thing that keeps us alive, señor.’

‘Myths are just what stories become when there is no longer a soul alive who witnessed the events first hand.’

that whatever may happen, life prevails.

‘That’s books for you, Atlas. Dependable and unchanging.

The peril of growing older is that we must watch those we love slip away one by one.

‘Humans are bound to one another, long before they meet in the physical world.’

‘No hope is false, Atlas. Hope is a choice. Hope means hoping even when things seem hopeless. Choose to be hopeful, and amazing things can happen.’

But I suppose that there are certain circumstances where the children are better cared for by others.’

The act of giving love to an unloved child is one of the noblest things a human can do.’

Know that the gaps in the diary were filled with love, laughter and family.

‘You can never be lost as long as you can see the stars, Atlas.’

‘As I have told the girls so many times, never judge others on what they do, but on who they are.