Walter's Purple Heart Quotes

“[There] was a time when a lot of people came to the door. The milkman. The iceman. The Fuller Brush man. Encyclopedia salesmen. There was a sense of interaction with the world that started right at your own front doorstep.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“we can’t even say what it is we’re missing. It’s like you can feel the hole, but you don’t know what’s supposed to fill it, because it’s something you’ve never seen. You don’t want it to be every man for himself, but it sort of is. And there’s not much you can do about it. I don’t mean to talk in riddles.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“It makes no difference whether you believe all this or you don’t. It not only makes no difference to me, but to anything. Things don’t wait for you to believe them. They happen. God is not Tinkerbell. He does what he does whether you clap your hands or hide behind the comfort of your disbelief.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“Every life matters. Even if it’s “them.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“Sometimes when things happen you just let them go, one by one, because it’s easier. You pretend they don’t mean as much as they do. I should’ve had my eyes open about that, but you can’t go back and second-guess things. It’s just that when we sat around and thought about the things we really loved, which you do when you’re away at war, mostly what came to me were experiences.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“I love my brother Robbie, but not enough to save him. I love my sister Katie, but I've learned to do it from a distance.
This is how we grow. Have you noticed that? This is what we call loving each other.
No wonder we have wars.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“See, this is the other reason for my depression, how before this whole thing came down I’d shot two Jap boys in the back. And it’s funny how it won’t sit with me, considering that’s what we came over here to do. It was the first time I’d ever actually killed somebody. And it wasn’t supposed to matter because it was them, but I kept thinking, Don’t Japanese mommas cry if their boys don’t come home? It’s one of those things you figure will be okay, and then it happens. Nobody really prepares you for when it happens. How can they? I guess.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“You can always tell what someone loves, because they pay attention to it. No matter what you say you love, what you really love is what you put the most time into.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“looking back, every moment feels equally important. Now the most tedious and uneventful day I ever spent feels like a gift. Now I’m holding those moments like a heaping double handful of pearls, and at the same time I’m admiring their beauty, I have to open my hands and let them pour through.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“I’m just floating along in this state of elation because all of life’s normal responsibilities and irritations are gone. It’s like a sheet of blue-lined paper, the kind you write on at school, but with the lines suddenly missing. No structure. Nothing is predictable. Everything that might happen now is new.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“You’re not using your head, dear,” she says. “No, of course I’m not,” he says. “I’m using my heart.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“So, who’s stronger, the man who looks truth in the eye, or the man who tells himself lies to make it go away?”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“There comes an age when you answer a call that has nothing to do with the family that raised you. You grow up over their heads, beyond their reach. They’ll hate you for it, but this is the natural order of things.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“what’s worse, if you’re expected not to show your feelings, or if you’re expected to show them so they can be disregarded?”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“Any decent man has to feel something for a woman who dearly loves him. Gratitude, if he can muster nothing else.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“There are only just so many times you can look at something before you no longer see it.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“Damn shame to have to go to heaven and tell Saint Peter you forgot to live while you had the chance.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“Things don’t wait for you to believe them. They happen. God is not Tinkerbell. He does what he does whether you clap your hands or hide behind the comfort of your disbelief. Besides, you know all this. You just forgot.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“way. That”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“He feels a seizing in his chest, a familiar searing pain. He tries to breathe around it, but it’s too big. It radiates along his left arm, folds him in half, like he’s a piece of trash too big for disposal.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“On Papua, actually, after you were gone. At least, that’s the first that I know for sure I killed. That I saw. I watched his eyes while he was dying. Then I almost turned the gun on myself.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“It’s like a sheet of blue-lined paper, the kind you write on at school, but with the lines suddenly missing. No structure. Nothing is predictable. Everything that might happen now is new. Sometimes disasters make me feel that way.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“Everybody is careful these days to maintain just the right attitude toward the war effort.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“That gold star in the window. The symbol for a lost son. It broke you down.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“She was also close to the other side. Maybe even close enough to see things most people can’t.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“This is one of the advantages of dying young. Everybody you left behind will need your help”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“It seems important,” she says. “It just doesn’t seem wrong.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“That’s the thing about this other side we’re on. There is no landscape. If you want to see things in any kind of context, you have to pick a context. You have to take one from home.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“I cover her with myself. See, if I have no body, I can be any shape I want. I can take up any amount of space I choose. I can be a blanket. Drape myself over her like a down comforter. I can pour myself over her head like water. I can shine on her like light, bathe her with myself until she feels something resembling warmth again. Don’t believe it entirely, Mom, I say.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart

“God is not Tinkerbell. He does what he does whether you clap your hands or hide behind the comfort of your disbelief. Besides, you know all this. You just forgot.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Walter's Purple Heart