Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe Quotes

“Resistance is always a red flag. When you resist going somewhere”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“Ever since he’d begun gardening he’d been noticing how nature designed food to fit the seasons—simple carbs for summer, starchy complex carbs for the winter when more warmth was needed—and how most people seemed determined to ignore and defy that carefully planned system.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“All the information you have to work with, to form an opinion about the situation, comes from your imagination. And I don’t know about you, but my imagination is a dangerous place to linger.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“I’m not suggesting you look in the mirror and say you’re sorry to your own face. It’s more of a living amends I had in mind. You make amends to yourself for treating yourself badly by treating yourself better.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“you missed the compliment looking for the insult.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“I’m going here with it. Are you clear on what it means when you flare up into anger regularly, and with very little notice or provocation?” “It means life is really maddening sometimes?” “It means you were already angry.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“The right thing for me to do. I think that’s always an easy call to make for someone else but not a smart thing to try to apply to ourselves. Too easy to mix up what we think is the answer with what we want the answer to be.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“shift your attention a little bit to the good side, just”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“Humanity is more common than you give it credit for.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“And that to me is the most despicable excuse for a human being on the planet—somebody who’ll beat the crap out of a smaller, weaker person for no particular reason, but only if there’s no risk to himself.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“Hardly a week went by when she didn’t catch herself bemoaning the fact that people only seem to extend their caring in that one situation that feels personal.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“It feels like this perfectly glassy ocean. Like being out on the ocean but no surf and no swells and no wind. Just all this silence. All this lack of movement. Nothing moves at all. The world is just still. Which almost sounds nice, except it doesn’t feel nice. There’s some kind of heaviness to it. It feels dark and thick. And it gets even less nice when all of a sudden you realize you’re a sailboat. And you’re just going nowhere.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“You’re doing it backward, hon. You’re doing everything ass-backward. Lying in bed trying to figure out what kind of life to have so you can get up and have it. It doesn’t work that way. Never did, never will. You want to know what life has in store for you? Then get up and start living it and you’ll find out. You can’t figure it out in your head first. Put one foot in front of the other. Take a step with your left foot. Then one with your right foot. Repeat as necessary. More will be revealed. Nobody ever got anywhere lying in bed waiting to feel ready to start something hard, because you never will feel ready. The longer you put it off, the less you’ll feel ready. Once you’re out there doing it, the ready will kick in after the fact.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe

“Meanwhile he was thinking, See, this is the problem with your mother. She never stops being your mother, no matter what she does to you. It’s just a thread that doesn’t break, even if you really, really want it to.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, Falling Apart and Other Gifts from the Universe