More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
He’d felt terrified and suffocated by the thought of all the earnest love he’d have to endure if they had a baby. There would be no escaping it.
She didn’t want to fat-shame other people, but she certainly wanted to fat-shame herself because she deserved to be shamed.
Women were meant to “take care of themselves.” That’s what men said on dating websites: I’d like a woman who takes care of herself. They meant: I want a thin woman.
Men often used that phrase: “drop some weight.” They said it without shame or emotion, as if the weight were an object they could easily put down when they chose. Women said they needed to “lose weight,” with their eyes down, as if the extra weight was part of them, a terrible sin they’d committed.
“Don’t let your heart be a casualty of your head.”
Heather had grown up starved of love, and when you’re starved of something you should receive in abundance, you never quite trust it.
He’d been too young and happy to know that love wasn’t enough; too young to know all the ways that life could break you.
He could find hatred in his heart for her, too, if he went looking for it. The secret of a happy marriage was not to go looking for it.
She had not realized that grief was so physical. Before Zach died, she thought grief happened in your head. She didn’t know that your whole body ached with it, that it screwed up your digestive system, your menstrual cycle, your sleep patterns, your skin. You wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.
All babies had that same wise look, as if they’d just come from another realm where they’d learned some beautiful truth they couldn’t share. Every day brought an endless stream of new life.
He would do anything for his girls, anything, so he took the dreadful, heavy secrets they’d been carrying and he saw the relief with which they handed them over, and now he had his own secret, because he would never tell them how angry their secrets made him, never ever, never ever ever. The walls continued to pulsate as his wife and daughter held his hands and he knew this nightmare would last an eternity.
“… the leap into heaven, into fame, into legend—then the fall back to earth
They probably felt like it was the end of the world. But it turned out to be the making of them. The lowest point of your life can lead to the highest.
