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Don’t confuse intensity of emotion with quality of emotion,
“Don’t lose yourself in anger, Mac. It’s gasoline. You can burn it as fuel, or you can use it to torch everything you care about and end up standing on a scorched battlefield, with everybody dead, even you—only your body doesn’t have the good grace to quit breathing.”
“Sisters forgive each other a lot, don’t they, Mac? I mean, more than most people?”
Strength wasn’t about being able to do everything alone. Strength was knowing when to ask for help and not being too proud to do it.
I’d never understood why anyone would want to live forever. It had always seemed to me that death lent life a certain poignancy, a necessary tension.
Life’s an ocean, full of waves. All are dangerous. All can drown you. Under the right circumstances, even the gentlest swell can turn tidal. Hopping waves is for the weekend warrior. Choose one, ride it out. It increases your odds of survival.”
Life didn’t explode in the sunshine and pretty places. Life took the strongest root with a little bit of rain and a whole lot of shit for fertilizer. Although love could grow in times of peace, it tempered in battle.
Daddy told me once—when I’d said something about how perfect his relationship with Mom was—that I should have seen the first five years of their marriage, that they’d fought like hellions, crashed into each other like two giant stones. That eventually they’d eroded each other into the perfect fit, become a single wall, nestled into each other’s curves and hollows, her strengths chinking his weaknesses, her weaknesses reinforced by his strengths.
“War is no time for a coup. Continue fighting each other and you’ll end up destroying the kingdom you’re after ruling.”
It’s funny how, when things seem the darkest, moments of beauty present themselves in the most unexpected places.
“Do you think the heart only follows blood?”
Somehow, nothing’s quite as scary when you’re not on your knees.
