Beard in Hiding (Winston Brothers, #4.5)

by Penny Reid

“Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.” NEIL GAIMAN, THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE

“I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.” SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR, LA VIEILLESSE

Folks enjoy making claims about knowing exactly what they’d do in every situation, but the truth is, until it’s staring you in the face and it’s your situation, you don’t know a damn thing. It’s all a guess until it’s real and real decisions have to be made.”

Square jaws and thick hair and expressive eyes don’t make a man. Thoughts and actions make a man, specifically the ability to take action and a willingness to think. And, I supposed, that’s what made a woman too.

“At an early age I learned that people make mistakes, and you have to decide if their mistakes are bigger than your love for them.” ANGIE THOMAS, THE HATE U GIVE

Freedom at the direct expense of another person’s wellbeing was the worst kind of evil. It was selfishness masquerading as liberty, hypocrisy wearing the clothes of perseverance and grit. I wanted none of it.

The previous chapter of my life was at an end, an entirely new one was set to begin, and wasn’t that a bit of a miracle?

How wonderful that we as people could reinvent ourselves, have new loves, a new life, new adventures, a future that wasn’t predestined.

Certainly, neither of us were perfect. And perhaps that made us perfect for each other.